Gemmill

I think it's more a case of this being the first time Roeder himself has gone to watch him, rather than his scouts. 173356[/snapback] That's even worse! We've been interested in the lad since April and Roeder's going to watch him play for the first time 2.5 weeks before the window closes.

You know it's full of money before you pick it up. It's half open and some cash is protruding.

I wouldn't have nicked that car like, Laz, but I'd be away with the £1m. Straight home and then work out how to spend it/deposit it somewhere without raising alarm bells. That would be the hard part.

Full combat with a brain tumour might but that in perspective, like. © Anal Oliver This is why you lot count the beans while the real work is being done, no balls. An ice cream out of petty cash and it's a bed wetting extravaganza in the Accounts Dept, not to mention the cost of therapy for years afterwards. 173322[/snapback] I'm right and you know it, paddy!

I'd love the money, but I've got nothing like the bottle to do that. If you found a case in the street with £1m in it, would you keep it? I would without a second thought. Although with the adrenaline rush it would create walking down the street with it, I'd probably run head-first into a wall or something.

25th Hour. 1/2 a point for Ed Norton. 173300[/snapback] Knew I recognised it. The New York references should have told me. I thought 25th Hour was a class film like. 173304[/snapback] Aye, it's quality. I keep meaning to watch it again actually. Might stick it on my list.

You think hasn't made up his mind? I think if they were both on the table, right now, for a certain price he'd know. I assumed his sudden willingness to talk a little bit about players contracted to other clubs was mind games, much as I think the whole process is. We're not willing to buy Kuyt for £10-14m, and neither are 2 other well run clubs in the Premiership. He wants to come to the Premiership and a waiting game is being played. Gol says we bid for Gudjohnsen, so he'd have had full pre-season, as would Duff if we weren't back ridiculously early. Obviuously in an ideal world all 5/6 would be in before pre-season, but we can't let on that that's important, and we can't be held over a barrel. EDIT: Don't forget the window works both ways, the selling club can be left with an unhappy striker and no cash, and we can always go elsewhere (another reason to say you haven't decided yet!) Roeder mentioned this week that the players he was looking at would be integrated within 2 or 3 days, because they're not off in the Bahamas, they're in training with their current clubs. When there was no window, players regularly joined clubs mid-season, let's not overstate the importance of pre-season at their new club, highly beneficial, yes, but not crucial. I fear I'm becoming Leazes in his absence. 173303[/snapback] If he's made his mind up why is he wasting his time watching them in pre-season matches. I think he's terrified of making the wrong decision and doesn't know yet what the right one is. Which at this stage is not on. I don't want to appear to be having a go at Roeder specifically btw, because I'm sure he's not doing this out of unprofessionalism or anything of the sort. Far from it, I think he wants to get this right, but it's getting REALLY late in the day for all of this. The fact that the window works both ways is another problem if you ask me - the selling club can't afford to sell too late as it needs the cash to bring in a replacement. The more we wait and drag our heels, the more likely Feyenoord are to turn around and say "Sorry, too late. He's staying here."

25th Hour. 1/2 a point for Ed Norton.

Funny like, cos driving into work today I drove past a bus stop and there was a lass stood waiting for the bus, who clearly looked like she hadn't been anywhere near water and soap for days and I thought "THAT'S why I can't be doing with the bus." People who shower the night before are generally to blame for the stench on public transport btw. This girl was an extreme case.

The top one is an extract from "Leazes Mag: My Life in Film" btw.

"Fuck me? Fuck you! Fuck you and this whole city and everyone in it. Fuck the panhandlers, grubbing for money, and smiling at me behind my back. Fuck the squeegee men dirtying up the clean windshield of my car. Get a fucking job! Fuck the Sikhs and the Pakistanis bombing down the avenues in decrepit cabs, curry steaming out their pores, stinking up my day. Terrorists in fucking training. SLOW THE FUCK DOWN! Fuck the Chelsea boys with their waxed chests and pumped up biceps. Going down on each other in my parks and on my piers, jingling their dicks on my Channel 35. Fuck the Korean grocers with their pyramids of overpriced fruit and their tulips and roses wrapped in plastic. Ten years in the country, still no speaky English? Fuck the Russians in Brighton Beach. Mobster thugs sitting in cafés, sipping tea in little glasses, sugar cubes between their teeth. Wheelin' and dealin' and schemin'. Go back where you fucking came from! Fuck the black-hatted Chassidim, strolling up and down 47th street in their dirty gabardine with their dandruff. Selling South African apartheid diamonds! Fuck the Wall Street brokers. Self-styled masters of the universe. Michael Douglas, Gordon Gekko wannabe mother fuckers, figuring out new ways to rob hard working people blind. Send those Enron assholes to jail for FUCKING LIFE! You think Bush and Cheney didn't know about that shit? Give me a fucking break! Tyco! Worldcom! Fuck the Puerto Ricans. 20 to a car, swelling up the welfare rolls, worst fuckin' parade in the city. And don't even get me started on the Dom-in-i-cans, 'cause they make the Puerto Ricans look good. Fuck the Bensonhurst Italians with their pomaded hair, their nylon warm-up suits, their St. Anthony medallions, swinging their, Jason Giambi, Louisville slugger, baseball bats, trying to audition for the Sopranos. Fuck the Upper East Side wives with their Hermes scarves and their fifty-dollar Balducci artichokes. Overfed faces getting pulled and lifted and stretched, all taut and shiny. You're not fooling anybody, sweetheart! Fuck the uptown brothers. They never pass the ball, they don't want to play defense, they take five steps on every lay-up to the hoop. And then they want to turn around and blame everything on the white man. Slavery ended one hundred and thirty seven years ago. Move the fuck on! Fuck the corrupt cops with their anus violating plungers and their 41 shots, standing behind a blue wall of silence. You betray our trust! Fuck the priests who put their hands down some innocent child's pants. Fuck the church that protects them, delivering us into evil. And while you're at it, fuck JC! He got off easy! A day on the cross, a weekend in hell, and all the hallelujahs of the legioned angels for eternity! Try seven years in fuckin' Otisville, J! Fuck Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and backward-ass, cave-dwelling, fundamentalist assholes everywhere. On the names of innocent thousands murdered, I pray you spend the rest of eternity with your seventy-two whores roasting in a jet-fuel fire in hell. You towel headed camel jockeys can kiss my royal Irish ass! Fuck Jacob Elinsky, whining malcontent. Fuck Francis Xavier Slaughtery my best friend, judging me while he stares at my girlfriend's ass. Fuck Naturelle Riviera, I gave her my trust and she stabbed me in the back, sold me up the river, fucking bitch. Fuck my father with his endless grief, standing behind that bar sipping on club sodas, selling whisky to firemen, cheering the Bronx bombers. Fuck this whole city and everyone in it. From the row-houses of Astoria to the penthouses on Park Avenue, from the projects in the Bronx to the lofts in Soho. From the tenements in Alphabet City to the brownstones in Park slope to the split-levels in Staten Island. Let an earthquake crumble it, let the fires rage, let it burn to fucking ash and then let the waters rise and submerge this whole rat-infested place." "The days go on and on... they don't end. All my life needed was a sense of someplace to go. I don't believe that one should devote his life to morbid self-attention, I believe that one should become a person like other people." "All the animals come out at night - whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets."

And by the way, we SHOULD have signed Hasselbaink. He lived in the area, he guaranteed goals, he would have taken a short term contract, and he was free. It had common sense signing written all over it. No surprises then that we passed up on it.

So? He wasn't even on our Roeder's radar (the Ro-dar) until we failed in our attempts for other players (by dilly-dallying IMO) and started to get desperate.

I think that's unfair on Shepherd; the reality is, from a business perspective, you have to use the full extent of the window as a negotiating tool. I'm not sure Owen would ever have signed for us if signings weren't restricted to a window. He's signed Luque from a chairman that other chairman just refuse to deal with because he's so bad, and whatever people say, he seems to form very solid relationships with other chairman. I think you have to give both Roeder and Shepherd credit for the balls it takes to wait for the right man, when the fans are screaming for signings and it can't be comfortable for them. Looking at the way Shperherd behaves, there's probably an element of machoism to his negotiations, but that doesn't make the tactic a bad one. How detrimental the is to pre-season is another argument, but from a business point of view, I think he's got it spot on. Ultimately I'd rather have the right players lacking a pre-season than the wrong ones early. 173249[/snapback] We could always get the right player in AND give them a full pre-season, you know? It's what proper clubs do. Or at least get them in as early as they can. That Roeder STILL can't make his mind up between Kuyt and Martins is pretty damning tbh - it's not like they're even similar players or anything as far as I can see. I understand that he's trying to get the decision right, but I don't understand the willingness to toss aside half of the transfer window to do it. Ashton and Defoe could have been pursued earlier and real pressure put on their clubs during the World Cup to sell them. Instead we left it to the point where we had to turn our attentions elsewhere without really putting that pressure on them, because we couldn't afford to waste any more time pursuing them. Instead we've turned our attention back to Kuyt and onto a player we'd never even considered prior to the last week in July or so.

I've said it elsewhere, but we haven't adjusted yet to the concept of a transfer window. We don't know how to operate in one. The idea is NOT to take all 3 months up and then do all your business in the last week, as Shepherd seems to think it is. He's like a kid at school who gets given 3 month to do an assignment and leaves it all to the last minute to get it sorted. We should be looking to get all of our transfer dealings completed BEFORE we start pre-season training, and where that isn't possible we should be making the finishing touches to the squad during pre-season. We should NOT be doing all of our business this late. It's stupid, it's unprofessional and it prevents us from preparing properly for the season ahead.

I hate using public transport. I realise it makes me look a snob, but I don't care. I don't mind the occasional metro journey during a weekday (usually coming back from the garage after dropping my car off) when it's not busy, or in and out of town on a match day, but there's no way I could do rush hour on the metro. Don't even talk to me about buses btw. I'd rather travel by skateboard.

We're in the midst of another Newcastle fiasco tbh. If only me and Renton can recognise that fact, then so be it. Soz and that, but I've always been upbeat in the past, but I just think we're once again going about things the wrong way here.

"Go hard and go early" was the motto of some Aussies I used to drink with. I can't even begin to describe what the hangovers were like.

That's cheered me up no end. 173139[/snapback] I don't mean to put a downer on things, but if the Kuyt and Martins deals fall through (which is perfectly feasible), we're back to square one with three weeks of the window left to go. All of this should have been sorted out ages ago, and we should have just been putting Gravesen as a finishing touch to the squad. Instead we've brought in ONE of the 5 or 6 players Roeder said we needed. I think we're in trouble. 173151[/snapback] your posts are becoming increasingly Rentonesque. That worries me more than any transfer tbh 173176[/snapback] There's not a lot to be positive about tbh. We are 2 weeks away from Shepherd having to start splashing out silly money that we can't afford on panic buys. It should never have got to this stage, but unfortunately, when you rule out making any signings until after the World Cup has finished (reducing the 3-month transfer window by a third, and the pre-season transfer window (the bit where clubs actually can afford to lose players and have time to replace them) to 6 weeks), you create problems for yourself.

Jesus Bobby, 3-4 bottles a night. That's full-scale alcoholism, surely!?

Settle boy, settle. How is this any different to the transfer windows of the last 4 seasons? 173164[/snapback] All of which were a roaring success.

By which point there'll be 2.5 weeks of the transfer window left, and STILL we haven't made our mind up whether to even make a bid. Brilliant.

That's cheered me up no end. 173139[/snapback] I don't mean to put a downer on things, but if the Kuyt and Martins deals fall through (which is perfectly feasible), we're back to square one with three weeks of the window left to go. All of this should have been sorted out ages ago, and we should have just been putting Gravesen as a finishing touch to the squad. Instead we've brought in ONE of the 5 or 6 players Roeder said we needed. I think we're in trouble.

Name and shame Gemmill? 173145[/snapback] Nah, it's none of the pissup crew. My mates from school.

8 hours is pretty much what I need. Too much less than that and I can't function. Even after the 8 hours I still feel canny tired in the morning though.