Dr Gloom

i smell something that smells like shit

could be the only member of roeders's back four that keeps his place under big sam

average english side plays average italian side in meaningless pre-season shocker

Bring it on. any full backs among that lot?

good news for us. i reckon big sam could eke another 7 or 8 years out of nobby.

We didnt buy him for 17m (or 16m for that matter). This is about the third or fourth time you've posted this Laz - come on stump up, besides a hell of a lot of grief, what did Owen cost us? Part of owens transfer fee was offset against money owed from the woodgate deal. it wouldnt surprise me that all we paid for owen was 9m up front with the rest from the woodgate deal. 9m of course - is the rumoured release fee in owens contract. I dont know how the suits do the reporting - but we may have lost money on the woodgate deal, rather than the owen deal. i imagine you're right, but that money was still owed to us. just because it was a debt doesn't mean it wasn't real money. the fee in total, including the woodgate deal was widely reported to be around the £16m mark so if we let him go for his release clause, i still see us making a £7m loss.

what a twat. doesn't he realise how ridiculous he sounds? i get embarrased for him every time he does punditry for sky. what does he know about anything? he spent £20m on luque and boumsong! tarting up my arse

i think he's saying all the right things. he sounds very professional compared with previous managers.

he's cliche-tastic

true but even ashley's millions might not buy an entire new starting eleven during this window. we need to get the defence sorted before we address midfield where we're relatively well stocked. though i won't be complaining if he fancies splashing his cash all over the shop

solano can do a job at rb for the short term. i think cb and lb are more pressing priorities. as long as carr never plays for us again, i'll be happy.

dyer could play left side if he had a proper left back behind him. ie not babayaro or ramage.

i doubt ashley will care too much about expanding the stadium. shepherd will go up in my estimation if he persuades the new man to plough some of his millions into further improving the club's infrastructure

He never seems to look to happy like. pics?

nice to see we didn't "step aside" to allow barton to go to west ham

I'm being more and more impressed every day - I like the way Barton has mentioned the "sell" that was given to him and Viduka looks the same. Could be cynical and mention the money but I get the feeling Sam, as with the backroom thing, just goes about things "properly". proper manager tbh

the resemblance is uncanny big sam mike basset

interesting. from those quotes it sounds like big same might give up on his three-pronged attack he used at bolton and revert to a 4-4-2.

good player. maybe they'll swap him back for duff

anal back from holiday then? i recognise that prose anywhere

i definitely think we've sold to the right bloke. he seems a far better bet than the likes of polygon or belgravia

ok. now let's buy 4 new defenders

so no profit at all then. i reckon we could have got in the region of £8-10m if we'd held out. not least because he's english

it's good that sam's bolstering the squad by signing decent players for small fees knowing that there's money in the bank to splurge on a big name player if we need to.

6-7 goals a season is a decent return from a centre midfielder as long as the widemen chip in with a few - something duff and dyer have to improve on