Adam2003

It's completely different PieFacE. We're steadily investing in the club. Randy Lerner has ambitions for the club to be able to run itself financially. He has put money into the club, which he decided to do to get us to a standard to compete with the top half of the table. Man City have invested something like £300m in 2 years. They have bought how many strikers? 5? 6?.. How many midfielders do they currently have? I can see this point. People saying "we do the same thing but on a different scale" miss the point IMO. Of course we do. So does everyone. And it's a fairly similar scale so the league is fairly competitive. However, if one or two clubs can just spend £500 million then it quickly becomes a joke league. If Spurs spend £60 million, we spend £40 million and Everton spend £20 million that can still be competitive. If Man City just spend £500 million, it won't be. So what's the point in watching it? I would not want someone to come in and just buy us the league year after year. Of course I would like someone (like Randy Lerner) who has enough money for us to compete in a decent league. That's not hypocritical. (If 20 multi-multi-billionaires came in of course, ie every PL club had one, then that would probably make for a decent league!)

I wonder how the Silva deal (and Toure to a lesser extent) will affect a possible move for Milner? They can only play 11 at a time...

It doesn't. No more than the US$12 million FxPro pays to Virgin Racing affects ours (other than that FxPro doesn't have unlimited money, of course).

Villa's deal with FxPro is worth more than Fulham's. Significantly more. I know about that more from the Fulham side than the Villa one, I'm not any sort of Villa ITK! But trust me on this. And both are good deals for the respective clubs.

This has to be the funniest post ever. Our history makes the history of Man City look absolutely garbage. Yes, you have a history but it isn't all that impressive. Wasn't the last trophy you won back in the 70's (other than the First Division in 2000 or whatever it was). Man City have a good history and I respect it. However, that history ended for me the moment you became, basically, a real-life version of someone cheating on Football Manager. That's not what City were all about.

At the end of the day let's not forget Randy's fortune comes from credit cards :winkold:

The Spurs deal was £34m over four years, which is quite a decent amount. It'd probably pay for two £10m players and their wages for 2-3 years. Yep, chances are we'll be between Everton's £3 million per year and Tottenham's £8 million.

Don't panic and rest assured the club will only sell him if Randy and Martin decide it's the best option and fair price?

I'd be surprised if it's that much. Everton are on a similar level to us, and their deal with Chang is £8 million over three years, so less than £3 million per year, albeit signed in 2008. We won't be too much more than that, will we?

No news is good news. The media banging on about it will only make him more likely to leave. They were going on and on about it to fill column inches and now they have something else - it's a good thing.

Don't think it hurts us at all in this situation that we have pretty much as many players in the England squad as those who might be tapping him up. I hope he only talks to Warnock and Heskey.

Well, of course not, no-one wants to lose one of our best players. But that's football, isn't it? Whoever you are. Manchester United lost Ronaldo last summer, Arsenal might lose Fabregas to Barca this summer. The question is what you do afterwards. Spurs lost Carrick and Berbatov to United but have still built and got fourth. Hope he stays though. But if not, good luck to him, as I'm sure he'll leave in "the right way", and the club will go on.

Peopl saying stufflike "I can't believe we have to resort to basically begging companies through e-mail to think about sponsoring us"... That's how sponsorship and marketing works. I can tell you for a fact that Tottenham's sponsorship department are working like crazy at the moment trying to find someone to replace Mansion, and a lot of the work involved is calling big companies up and offering them the opportunity. The fact people get riled is just bizarre when you understand that's how the sponsorship world works. Like the papers going mental about John Terry's agents sending out a thing offering him for sponsorship... don't people realise that's what everyone does? Do you think Nike always phone Cristiano Ronaldo's agent rather than the other way aorund? In that case, what does Ronaldo pay him so much for? If we didn't want people to do this, we wouldn't have a sponsorship department. Even if someone offers us £5 million a season today we'll have people contacting companies tomorrow to see if they can get £6m.

I agree with everything you're saying CHindie, but just to correct you on some figures - Liverpool and Manchester United's new deals are both worth £20 million per season and Chelsea's latest with Samsung is about £15 million per season. Arsenal's is tied in with the stadium, and Spurs hope to get betwee £10 and £15 million from whatever sponsor they get this summer. After that they fall away sharply as you say. Newcastle's new one with Northern Rock is £2.5 million per season. We'd be looking between that and £5 million in my opinion.

This is my general feeling. We haven't lost to them in about five years, which (a) given it's their Cup final even more than ours is almost certainly going to leave them wanting it more and ( the law of averages just suggests we can't keep beating them every match. We are a much better team though, to be fair.

Portsmouth reserves, more like, with the players they can't play. Away from home, they're down so will attack and leave themselves open. I'm confident for this one if the defence can stay solid.

We're no worse, as far as I can tell, than Olympiakos, and they're in the knock-out rounds. No worse than Rubin Kazan or Unirea Urziceni and they picked up a good few points in the groups and gave the likes of Barcelona and Inter some scares. We're not good enough to win it, maybe we wouldn't get through the group even if we got to it, but we wouldn't embarrass ourselves in the CL. This is a competition, lest we forget, that counts Nicklas Bendtner and Michael Owen as its joint second highest scorers this season - ok, freak hattricks, but still :winkold:

Yup because the clubs in the comp dont benefit from being in it whatsoever :| Only the ones that get to the group stages and win points in that league, get there and lose or don`t get there at all , and you win FA. Rangers got two points from the CL group stage, if I remember rightly, and got about £15 million for participating. The whole point of the CL in its current format, the whole reason they brought it in, is so that even if you mess up completely you get a decent wedge. Just qualifying and not even reaching the groups would be worth a few million, depending on how other English clubs do (we'd get a share of the pot reserved for English clubs as well as money for our own performances). These are facts I'm giving you here, all available on www.uefa.com. Not necessarily the £40 million or whatever it adds up to for reaching the semi-finals, but not to be sniffed at.

Whisper it quietly, but I'm with you. Their fans are still their fans, of course, but the team have played some good football, they haven't been shouting their mouths off about being as big as us as you would expect them to given they're only a few points behind, and I have nothing against Carson Yeung, in fact the fact he hates Gold and Sullivan endears him to me. Plus McLeish seems a likeable bloke who has been happy to say since there that we're on a different planet to them. I'm sure that beating them again and again recently has also softened me, and if we lose the derby I'll remember why I hate them, but at the moment... they're probably the least offensive they've been for a while, put it that way.

One word.....Everton!!! so? Better not to try then, and just accept mediocrity, and never competing with the top clubs in the CL? Don't try in case you fail? Thats not what im saying Jon, im just saying its not that easy as make it into the top 4 once and your garenteed top 4 from then on. Ah, but Everton's was compromised by Liverpool being allowed back in. That meant the 'big four' all got the usual cash benefits that season. If Liverpool don't make it in this seaosn, they will be financially screwed, thus making it more difficult for them next season. Plus Everton are a financial mess dating back 12 years and so can never use the money they should be able to.

Tickets just dropped into my hand. Beautiful. I'd like to see: Harsh on Cuellar after a great season, Guzan after a great cup run and Carew after a good performance last night but I think it's our best team for this match.

He bottled it plain and simple. Friedel would have been all over that ball, Guzan took the cowardly way out by putting the onus on Carlos. Guzan never even attempted to come out. You're talking drivel. The very fact people are debating it shows it wasn't certain. In which case, defender puts it out. I wonder sometimes if people have ever played the game. No offence

Experience and familiarity. I'm sure he'd do better if he was playing behind them every week. He'll be a good keeper when he's in the team regularly, although that's a way off yet given Big Brad's recent form.

Delph has had a few moments I would have wanted him to have a shot as well, 25 yards out in space. I think once he's playing regularly and has his confidence up he'll be smacking them in from there.

Why on earth is he saying away in that situation? It just puts unnecessary pressure on the defender when there is no real pressure there. Agreed but if he does say clear then Cuellar has to clear. It's the goalkeeper's decision, good one or bad one. Yep, Guzan probably should have come but Cuellar made him look stupid by making him shout two or three times. If you're told clear it, clear it. Don't second-guess your goalkeeper. I'd go Friedel for the final but not based on that moment! We're playing well. On another day we'd have scored loads. Carew has impressed me for the first time in a while as well.