Rushian

You were sat in the paddock, Kop end weren't you?

That's my understanding of it exactly - and much better explained than I could! Will be very interesting to see what he has found - even if it's confirmation he did stay in Liverpool it would be a major historical step forward, let alone the Anfield bit.

I looked into this pre-Xmas and was pretty sure the story could never be authenticated. Bit of an urban myth if anything.

what a surprise, Newcastle sack a manager just after the transfer window closes ....

The value of Josemi/Kromkamp is surely a book value as it was a straight swap and relates directly to the fee paid by Villareal last summer.

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The Times were shown to be talking out of their a*** though.

he's referring to the midfield, and Warnock being the only one left.

Roger Headerer

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actually it rose last year as a % because we had no CL football. Season before it was around 54%.

It might be worth Bascombe pointing out that Walcot couldn't have moved to Liverpool under the scholarship scheme as he was under 17 and his family had to live within 90 minutes travelling distance so unless they decided to uproot last summer was never a possibility.

As they'd say on RAWK .... whoooooosh

No, but we were at a fundamental turning point in the history of the club having had to expensively get rid of one manager and bring in a new management team. We had to overcommit then knowing balance would be restored later. All clubs do it. Fans rarely want to understand it though.

I'd hope both, given the very uncertain future facing the game in terms of attendances and the TV contract being up, the uncertainty over our stadium plans, and the overspending we did last season to fund Rafa's purchases. Throw paying off Houllier, Thompson, Heskey, Babbel et al for 10m and it's hardly a surprise we're "careful".

It's a deal, certainly not great. Compare it to paying 6m up front for Xabi Alonso with appearence/success clauses taking it upto 10.6m - and that's for a 22 year old Spanish international with experience of playing as a regular in a La Liga first team for 2-3 seasons, and experience of Champions League football. And without the risk associated with signing a 16 year old player in terms the vital development which still has to take place physically, mentally and in his footballing ability.

He can make the necessary appearences whilst being a pretty average player. There's many a promising youngster that plays a hundred games without setting any houses on fire.

The earliest I can remember hearing it was at (a very cold) Auxerre away in February 2003.

though another coach from Huyton claims they started it off on one of the compilation tapes someone puts together for all games.

Wait 9 weeks and they could have got him for 3m. So in effect they're paying £1m a week until then to bring him in early.

And when it doesn't you've "wasted" the money. The problem with any deal like this is it locks in 12m of future revenue, not just the initial downpayment.

Think it shows how delusional most football fans are. In any normal season Man Utd's form/results are good enough for a very strong title challenge, it's only the freakery of Chelsea that is distorting this reality. They're playing at home. They have world class forwards in Rooney and Van Nistelrooy. I'll be happy if we can get anything out of the game.

Those comments may even be from the weekend and culled from a longer interview, just being regurgitated - certainly heard them before.

It's amazing the amount of regurgitation the same articles in the press over the last few days. The Independent has used the same base article at least four times.