CanadaSaint

Friendlies are just as much about players playing themselves OUT of the reckoning as INTO it. For me, Jos must be fourth (or lower) on the CB depth chart, or we've still got a big problem.

Watching this, I'm not sure that not having a stream is a bad thing.

Duplicate post.

No, that was named after a former headmaster of Hythe County Primary School, and I'm fairly certain there was no link between them.

True, but if the player makes the payment of a commission to his agent a condition of agreeing to the move, it has the same affect. The agent's enforceability is not against the selling or buying clubs but against his own player, so the agent effectively has his own player by the nuts. The player knows that because he agreed to it when he established a legal relationship with the agent. How else could this situation of huge agent commissions - and deals scuppered if they're not paid - have developed? If clubs are willing to pay the big agent commissions, everything works out in the end and we see numbers like those at the top of the chart on the first page of this thread. If they're not willing to pay those commissions, as Cortese isn't, we see deals fall apart. There has to be some enforceability somewhere or else this wouldn't be happening.

I'm not sure about the legal technicalities but I'm sure there are ways to frame it so that it's enforceable. It just becomes a cost of doing the deal, whether it's paid by the selling club or the buying club. After all, so many "big player" deals these days seem to incorporate a cut for the agent. That's where this thread started.

When a player hooks up with an agent they obviously end up signing a contract. It seems that, increasingly, player/agent contracts include a clause entitling the agent to a percentage of any future transfer fees - paid by someone other than the player. So, much as everyone hates them, these are not so much greedy demands by the agents as legal entitlements. And the player is bound to them, too - even if it's not in his best interests. The irony is that the agents inject themselves into the situation to protect the players from the clubs, but take advantage of the fact that nobody is protecting the players from the agents. I admire Cortese's stands on this but it's going to cost us some good players until all the other PL clubs form a more unified front.

It seems to me that we're caught in a kind of void between what we are and what we hope to be. As a result we're trying to sign quality players who are reluctant to join a club of our current stature when they know they're good enough to sign for teams that are already where we are aiming to go. I'm sure that Cortese and Pochettino know this, which is why we are apparently chasing a number of similar players when we couldn't possibly afford to sign all of them. I'm prepared for some disappointments along the way - perhaps quite a few - but at least we seem to have started earlier this year, giving ourselves the leeway to keep plugging away until we get some quality biters. I hope everyone can accept that this is our current reality - without ripping Cortese for the failures and calling players arrogant c*cks just because they're (understandably) looking out for their own interests. Yeah, I'd love to see Lukaku here but Chelsea's response to an approach is likely to include the name Shaw. If that's the trade-off I'd rather keep Shaw.

And we are still paddling around in Pearce's neolithic era. It would be funny if it wasn't so damn sad.

I've always cringed at the thought of any of our youngsters playing for Pearce, and nothing's changed. I can't see any of them coming back as better players - far from it. Good thing Shaw didn't go IMO.

I can't imagine that this horrendous decision will last much past tomorrow. If it does it will become much bigger news in a hurry, and rightly so.

Strange to see us linked with Jesus Gamez. Either we have a shedload more money than any of us thought, or MP has a different idea of priorities than most of us. The other option - surely it couldn't be this - is that the Mirror is talking our of its arse. Again.

If we only had two, those would be my choices as well because our inability to goals from midfield (there were some easy chances missed) may well have cost us at least six places. But I think that this week's Cortese shenanigans were about bigger aspirations.

I wouldn't always blame slips on the pitch. In many cases - those involving Jos in particular - they result from failing to read the game quickly enough and being forced into sudden directional changes. Clyne slipped quite a lot early-season but less as he became more comfortable at this level.

Stoke are at a real crossroads. Their fans want to see better football, especially with "newer" PL teams coming up and playing with some style, but they don't have the players and it will cost a fortune to make the change. On the other hand, this current squad has shown that it is potentially relegation material. They're in the "damned if they do, damned if they don't" corner.

Did I hear correctly that Yoshida has been struggling for some time with a pelvic injury? If so, that answers the question that I've had for several weeks - why on earth would MP reunite the potentially disastrous Fonte/Jos partnership?

Considering that Pochettino imposed his style - and created a new identity for the team - without having even one player that he brought to the club, I'd say that 14th is highly satisfactory. If anything shows him to be a solid tactician and a top-notch man manager, that's it. The test for him comes now, because he will start next season with some players that he did bring to the club. I'm optimistic that they will fit his style better than some of our current starters, which augurs well for the fans but not so well for some of our current squad.

It said "Teddy". Anyone know who that is?

It's a lot easier to get the business done early if we're trying to sign players that no other teams are chasing. The high appeal and high value players always seem to take longer, and - frankly - I'd rather see us slug it out for real quality. Having said that, it's probably going to be easier to address the key central D problem, so I'd like to see that one done early.

On the plus side, a slick surface probably helps our playing style, although it wouldn't do much for Stoke.

The suggestions that we could finish 10th certainly weren't "b0ll0cks", as one look at the ends of season table shows. But that's not the point. The point is that the forum is worse, not better, for thread after thread of his habitual sneering.

Why does damn near everything you post have a childish little sneer in it? You really are a sad little person.

A goal-scoring midfielder with a high work rate could have seen us 5 or 6 places higher. Davis works so damn hard but just the sitters he missed at Spurs and today could have cost us 5 points.

Perhaps naively, I've been guided for all these years by the definition of a supporter: Of course, I added the underlining. That floats my boat a lot better than this one:

Indeed it would, because that could explain what seems to be a (hopefully temporary) impasse between Cortese and the family/trustees. However, I'm still awaiting an answer to the question "Is the Club owned by a standalone trust, created solely for that purpose, or is it part of a broader trust encompassing all or most of Markus's assets?" No kidding!