jimmylibel

Enough people are laughing at the valuing of Josemi at £4+million.

I think they are both in the same year. However I thought they were every 4/5 years. The last Real election was in 2004 though, remember Sanz (the other candidate and former President) saying that he would sign Baros (post becoming euro 2004 top scorer) if elected.

It was around this time last year that the first reports started appearing of a deal having been agreed in principle to sign Reina.

Completely but it cancels out the book value of Josemi.

Michael Owen

Reports on the radio here this morning seem fairly adament that he is starting on the bench tonight. He's bound to start so.

You are John L and I claim my £5

Agree with that, he was definitely fairly quick - just didn't have 'explosive', Owenesque pace.

Well I suppose I should have said a theoretical profit of £11 million now rather than 'in the bank' as such.

Exactly how long have we been looking for a right sided midfielder though? Doesn't this quest pre-date Rafa? I think I remember us being linked with Conceicao ?(the old Simao ) in the summer after the treble season.

Theoretically doesn't the profit before tax of £9.5m (think it's £7.4 million or something after tax) coupled with the £13.8 million generated in transfers payments, minus the £4.3 million payment for Kronkamp and th £5.8 million for Agger suggest we have around about £11 million in the bank now? (Obviously doesn't take into account other expenses and revenue generated since last July) Fairly sure it was an undisclosed fee mate - the speculation was suggesting something in the region of a couple of million if I remember correctly.

Just think we're leaving ourselves a little short now Scot - not exactly a huge amount of RM options available to us and I do think little Pongolle has the ability to turn a game coming on from the bench.

So who has tapped him up to you reckon? Arsenal?

I take your point about closing the thread but can I please add the following response to an accusation that was thrown at me in that thread. I was in the middle of typing it when the thread was locked. "I still don't see how you made that jump. If you'd quoted the rest of my post or read any of the other posts I've made on this subject you'd see it had nothing to do with his opinions, rather his slagging off of players/ staff ie personal abuse of these individuals not just criticism of them. That is the crap that I was referring to. So please stop jumping to conclusions and trying to twist words in your efforts to muddy the waters of this debate."

It's CL winner, Sir Djimi Traore to you!

Agreed.

I'm still trying to figure out how you got that from what I wrote.

I'm fairly the fanzine did say the Frenchman mate, but also I think you're changing the debate from slagging the players/ staff off to criticising them. There is/ was no problem with constructive criticism, I do however have a big problem with needlessly slagging off the players/ staff when they are still at the club with sly digs which they can not reply to and helping to foster an attitude of hate towards certain personnel. That is even worse when it is outside the ground and masquerading as representing the views of the fans - it probably represented a section of fans but not the majority and not any I'd have wanted to be associated with. As I said, no problem with criticism, but do have a problem with personal attacks.

Am I 100% certain? No, but as far as I remember that was one of the things I was annoyed with in the fanzine. He might be a sound guy but I haven't had any dealings with him and I would be really pissed off if any friend of mind started publishing the cr*p that TLW fanzine was at the time.

He wasn't the only one using it though, correct me if I'm wrong but I'm fairly sure TLW did too. And I think we all know what the insinuation of that phrase means and why those that use it choose to use it. Vitriolic delivery can come in print form too.

But has certain xenophobic overtones especially given the way it was used in the past.

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"It all happened within 24 hours... cos if it was any longer than that I'd be guilty of lying to the Echo"

Agreed for the most part - but I would have a problem with someone writing "M*rientes" or the 'Frenchman' when talking about Cisse for example. If people started doing that here I'm fairly sure they'd be banned/ suspended and I'd have no real problem with that. Disrepectful to the club and the player.

I always think that Motson makes a poor game seem even worse. Thinks he's a pundit and for all his supposed 'stat' knowledge isn't actually that knowledgeable about the game.