NeilS

Been watching Game On. Brilliant.

Anyone else remember this?

Haha, yes I remember that. Which Series/Matt?

My whole family is blues. I don't mind them going into administration, give them as much brutal punishment as possible as long as they do remain a club ...anything to help them not get promoted is good.

Well yeah, that's kind of what i was referring too.... I just wouldnt want them gone as a club. I'm no expert but... if they go into Administration, wouldnt there be a good chance they could disappear?

I have absolutely no idea but there has been a fair few clubs over the years go into administration but not finished as a club.

Administration is where the banks/creditors appoint somone to run the club and reduce the debts and get things on an even keel ready to run again. So as long as the administrators can do that they will keep running as a football club. It is if they are liquidated that they will cease to exist.

It's the Wigan FC shop, with Glasgow Rangers shirts on sale, and a good luck from all at WAFC message.

Why not simply meet in the middle? An extra 500k wont make a bit of a difference to a premiership football club!

By doing the deal now and not on the last day of the window Wigan will save 6 weeks wages (£250-£300k?)

Exactly, they seem to be squabbling over peanuts!

As N'Zogbia hasn't put a transfer request in, wouldn't he be in line to recieve the rest of his contract with Wigan paid up, ie 1 years pay?

No, he'd just be due the loyalty bonus and signing on fee (5% of transfer fee), though if he did go on strike I would imagine Wigan would have rather a good case to say he wasn't due at least the loyalty bonus.

Ah right, thank you for clearing that up. That sounds more reasonable.

Why not simply meet in the middle? An extra 500k wont make a bit of a difference to a premiership football club!

By doing the deal now and not on the last day of the window Wigan will save 6 weeks wages (£250-£300k?)

Exactly, they seem to be squabbling over peanuts!

As N'Zogbia hasn't put a transfer request in, wouldn't he be in line to recieve the rest of his contract with Wigan paid up, ie 1 years pay?

I thought that we had high hopes for Siegrist? If so, no need for Smithies. In five years he should be ready for first team action.

c) Villa walk away and N'Zogbia stays for another season. Whelan keeps hold of their most prized asset after defying the big boys, Winner = Whelan.

Then we sign N'Zogbia on a pre-contract in January and we get him for **** all next summer and Whelan misses out on £9m, Winner = Not Whelan

I think you can only do the pre-contract thing if it is to a different country. Unless the rules have changed.

Haha, yeah they well and truely got their revenge that day.

Getting tweets of NUFC fans that Villa are now officially their second team this season - after I pointed out we also have

Monday, Tuesday Habib Beye on our books... looks like we're re-uniting half their old squad!

Quality!

So they have forgotten or forgiven the "Who's your next Messiah, Ant or Dec?" banner that someone unleased at Villa Park? They haven't said a good word about us since.

To get both N'Zogbia and Parker for a little less than we sold Downing for would be great business, in my opinion. We do, however, also need to spend the Ashley Young money...

We certainly better spend the Ashley young money.

IMO if we spend less than £40 million this summer it will be a disgrace from Lerner.

Agreed, we were always told that money is there for transfers, it was the wage bill that needed taming. We have seen 10+ players leave this summer, so I think its safe to assume that the wage bill is a little better now. Randy needs some signings to get some feel good factor back in Villa Park, otherwise next season is going to be another long depressing season.

Why does it take us so long to do anything? Other teams seem to just buy players but we faff around for ages, what on earth are they doing. We seem to be linked to players for 3 years before we buy them!

It does seem that way, but is it a case of a watched pot never boils? We don't tend to watch other teams transfers quite so intensely, therefore they seem to go through easily.

The danger is now whether N'Zogbia would even consider Villa a step up from Wigan...

That cheered me up, thank you.

Its a funny i know, but i bet you, that N'zogbia will be somewhere else next season :winkold:

People outside the club see us as in decline, a club with no ambition, and a good bet for the drop!!!

Do you think any decent player in their right mind, will jion us at the moment?

Its not coincidence that we are being linked to the likes of Ethrington and McGeady, and the fact that we are, is just going to reinforce the view that we are buggered.

N'zogbia should have been signed a month ago. We certainly may have had a better chance then, now we will struggle.

I think we'll be ok, there are some very poor teams in the Premiership. We'll make some signings and depending on the percieved quality of those signings hopefully some optimism will return. I will try not to get too stressed out at this moment in time as it is still early. With regards N'Zogbia I think there is a good chance he'll end up here, he hasn't done enough to earn a move to a top team just yet. So we're the next logical step for him.

The danger is now whether N'Zogbia would even consider Villa a step up from Wigan...

That cheered me up, thank you.

I've picked up a general rule with regards to transfer rumours.

Ones you don't want to be true are true and ones you do want to be true are true.

Simple.

So every rumour is true? :confused:

Me too, I was impressed with him against England. The Swiss seem to have some promising players coming through. I think going the the time frame mentioned that he was probably a Houllier target, I'm not sure whether McLeish is interested or not. I hope so.

Another player badly mistreated by that nasty school teacher Mr Houllier.

Get him back in the team.

He's a experienced, Premier League proven left-back.

Has also been capped at international level at England and even went to the World Cup which was only 12 months ago.

P.S. Glad to see we have spelt his name correctly for this thread

How was he badly treated? I recall he was played regularly for the first team up until December, and he was not playing particularly well culminating in a thrashing at Man City?. Then came his apparent outburst at the training ground. It seemed as though he was against the manager from day 1, which is not how a professional should act.

He's been training every day for what, 2 years since it went? He's played a number of international games plus a load of reserve games. I think all things considered it 'should' be ok and it will certainly pass a medical.

I think his shoulder would be ok. My main concern is whether he still has the reactions that made him great, they tend to go as you get older, especially if you don't use them as often. It is safe to say that those games mentioned don't compare to the Premiership in terms of speed and physicality of play. I hope he is still a top keeper, we definately need one.

I really wanted Chelsea to sign Modric aswell.. here's hoping Modric submits a transfer request..

why? this would help unbalance an already unbalanced league. For the good of English football Spurs need to keep Modric and Bale from the Big 4 and challenge them next season

Why? because i don't like spurs.

I can't say I'm particulary fond of Spurs, but you have to admire their stance so far on this. Modric only recently signed a long term lucrative contract, he was happy to sign so he should honour it until someone is willing to pay for him to leave. Spurs paid £16m for Modric, now with 5 years on his Contract Chelsea offer £22m, I would reject that. Spurs have signed up their best players on long term contracts when the going was good, it is a lesson we should look at with our own players.

Downing only has to come out and say he wants to leave though? Especially when a club like Liverpool come knocking.

Which, although he hasnt directly said it yet, he's strongly hinted that that's what he wants, and the situation hasn't really changed from that apart from Scouse fans jumping to conclusions.

I still believe Downing to be a top professional though. He wants to leave, and he probably thought itd be in the clubs interest to 'cash in', but if the manager wont sell him I still think he'll give us 100%.

He has to if he has any aspirations of playing for England at next summers Euro's.

Were Villa to sell for £19m which I very much doubt I think there would be huge questions for the club to answer as that almost smacks of a fire sale.

AMcL is on the record saying that it would have to be ridiculous offer for Downing to go. That is not such an offer. Clearly the steer came from the club so he would be being undermined if we accepted a lower offer. I think the £19m is what Liverpool probably want to pay and no doubt they or Downing's agent is putting that about the media.

What's interesting is the clear disrespect Liverpool have again shown for Villa. With Barry I attributed it to a combination of the FSW and Rick Parry. Clearly its endemic to that club. Peronsally I can see RL and PF playing hardball on this.

I agree.

If Downing leaves then it will be yet another signal of Lerner's ambitions. I have stood by him thick and thin, even through the Mcleish saga, but if this sale goes ahead then even I will start to believe Lerner wants nothing but mediocre.

For me, it depends on who we replace Downing with. I've accepted that Downing and his agent have been tapped up by Liverpool some weeks back. Now it is up to Randy and Faulkner to wring as much money out of the cheating Scousers as we can. Then we need to go out and bag ourselves a top player or two to raise the teams quality and our fans optimism levels. If we don't do the final part, then I will question Randy's ambitions further. I will admit that the AMc appointment has made my support of Randy waiver a lot recently, but i'll see what he offers us this summer in funds before getting too angry, afterall he did shock us all in January by signing Bent.

I have the entire first series of Game of Thrones to watch. Looking forward to that a lot as the reviews have been pretty much unanimously positive. And of course there's supposed to be a fair amount of norkage in it.

Watched the first two episodes and I'm hooked.

I'm 5 in myself and I bloody love it. I expect to finish it over the next two days.

Game of Thrones was great, I can't wait for season 2.

Yet again the idiots fail to grasp one simple thing. We don't want to sell him, therefore we will not offer them a cut-rate deal and will only sell him if the amount offered outweighs the cost of losing him.

Exactly, they can't seem to get that into their thick heads.

Also, Downing can't afford to waste this season in a sulk if he has serious ambitions of playing for England at next summers Euro championships, assuming England qualify of course.

Probably because we sent the Geordie words removed down.

I think you're right, from reading some message boards before we played them last season, they seemed to have taken extra offence to the "Who's your next Messiah? Ant or Dec?" Banner that was unfurled at the match that saw them relegated.

The writing was on the wall towards the end of the season. One minute he is saying he owes us, and will stay even if we're relegated, the next minute he is saying he will keep his options open. Clearly he or most likely his agent have spoken to Liverpool and things have changed. Downing was robbed by his previous agent, so is probably looking to top up his bank balance and what better way than a juicy signing on fee. He can do one in my book, though I'd make Liverpool pay £20+m or he can rot. We can't afford to be pushed around on this one.

Whos to say he won't do a good job at Villa? Yes, there were better options out there, but with the right backing and SUPPORT from our fans, good things may come of this.

The problem is, most fans feel really low right now. The optimism and hope has gone out the window. It feels like a kick in the nuts. The team need to start the season on fire to get the fans back on side, a good start and the feel good factor returns. A bad start will mean a long hard season.