Gooner Spy

It would also detract from a great achievement from the likes of Sunderland. They stayed up on merit, and s*** kickers like Birmingham can, quite frankly, go f*** themselves.

Was talking to my old man about Moscow tonight, with hindsight, really quite relieved to not be heading out there.

Agreed, it would be massively unfair. In the context of this season, imagine if Fulham were sent packing and Derby got to stay up!

Was like pub football. Either of those would be cannon fodder in the big time.

Hard to compare the 3 as they are all so different. One thing for sure - all 3 are utterly unplayable when they fancy it. Torres and Ronaldo seem to fancy it on a more regular basis though.

Because he has his heart set on the idyllic countryside retreat of Milan.

Gets even better today - http://www.teamtalk.com/football/story/0,1...3560883,00.html . FFS.

This is neither a Bristol City appreciation thread, or an anti Palace thread. This is all about Neil Warnock, and I for one am delighted that he will be starved of the oxygen of publicity that another spell in the Premiership would have brought him. I have little doubt that all 3 will go down, West Brom may have something to say about that though. Why dont you just f*** off instead of jumping on anything I say trying to make out that I have some kind of weird agenda?

:woohoo:

I thinks its far less a pro Man U bias, and far more an pro-England bias. Graham Poll said as much in his book - he received no support from the FA if he had sent off Terry et al. Do you guys honestly believe, in your heart of hearts, that Gerrard would have been sent off for what Mascherano did at Old Trafford? I genuinely dont. Doesnt for a second make it right, but I think that, essentially, you are fighting the wrong battle.

I would actually cry if that were true. That would be the epitome of uninspiring.

Should do, should please everyone. That was about to become a landmark case, that would have vastly reduced the power of the club versus the power of players. The ramifications were potentially huge.

Looks like Wenger has well and truly put the s***s up Hleb by threatening to take him through the courts and leave him stewing for the outcome if he decided to try out the buying out of contract route. http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11670_3561109,00.html

Dont know Ronaldo will have as much freedom as for Man U, havent seen a lot of Portugal lately. Klose maybe, but I think Torres and Spain as a team should have more 'in their locker' than the rest of them.

The third guy in looks unerringly like Michael Ballack.

Oh yeah, sorry. No, he's keeping his mouth firmly shut, letting his agent do all the talking. I doubt theres an Aresenal fan out there who would try to convince you he's staying at this point.

Anyway, this has moved way off where it was meant to go. This is the point I was trying to make. It wasnt a criticism of Chelsea or Man United.

Insane? Where was that mentioned? The wage will unquestionably have dropped, and significantly so. Ljungberg, Henry, Reyes and Pires, all of whom left in the last couple of summers, were all in the superstar wage bracket. Their replacements simply will not have been on anything like those levels.

Which is fine. Going out and buying expensive, established players is a perfectly valid way of proceeding, i'm not questioning that. I'm just saying that its not the only way.

Agreed - I think they were old figures being trotted out to make a point. We only have a 22 man squad, so even if, as suggested previously, it is a case of a lot of players on a high wage rather than a few players on a massive wage. sure we have 'star earners', but the majority of these have moved on in the past couple of years. Why would Denilson be on any more money than his Man U equivalent, Fletcher? I just cant believe that our salary level is close to matching that of the top 2.

Ok, but the point, emerging from Chesea buying Bosingwa, and subsequently someone on here waving the white flag because Liverpool couldnt afford 16m for a full back, was to contrast our transfer policy with that of Chelsea and United, but not buying the most established players in each position, but rather looking further afield, and be willing to take a chance or 2 on quality youngsters.

Almunia, Toure, Clichy, Sagna, Senderos, Denilson, Diaby, Eboue, Adebayor would all fit what I am talking about. Modest transfer fees (not free), and lesser known (not toally unknown, but certainly not household names across Europe).

Arf arf. Wasnt too keen at first, but more I think of it, could be an excellent piece of business, if the money was right. Really really wish he would accept defeat in the hairline battle and shave it all off though.

The walcott deal was settled at a fixed amount as Southampton needed some cold hard cash rather than waiting for the future fees originally agreed. The Reyes deal was majorly based on future achievements. Given that all he really achieved was being a snivelling litte girl, we recouped that money when he went to Madrid. Arsenal have always chosen not to disclose transfer fees, but they always come out at some point.