OTF

9m extra is not a figure to scoff at. I'm not one of those who buys into being in Europe being a massive hindrance to the premier league season. You have a full summer to prepare for it, and 9 million is enough to bring in one good player or two decent ones even allowing for wages. Being in Europe should also make us slightly more appealing to players, instead of being just another of the mid-table rabble. The extra players will provide additional cover across the premier league season. All said and done though I don't realistically see us finishing 7th.

Indeed. We don't even really know who the people with the supposed 35m to spend are.. apart from the fact that Ashley has the final say on player movements.

Should turn up to St James' on match day in a suit. As for training I really don't see what the point in turning up to training in anything but training gear is. On the way out obviously they can wear something else, but no point in putting on a suit for the sake of it.

This is true, but when I look over the strikers we have I'm not particularly confident in their ability to score. They've done a decent job admittedly so far, but they haven't been convincing. It could dry up, or they could be spurred on.... Shola coming back will help. I'll admit you can't compare it to 2008/09 where we struggled to create chances let alone score.

Of course nothing is set in stone, but it's a bit different with Manchester United and someone like Evra. The talk was if he left he'd be heading back to France and it's not like French clubs are known for splashing large amounts of cash for players. Ergo if he does actually want to leave Manchester United for France the club won't get their money back from his sign-on and loyalty bonus. He's 30 in three months, and was already contracted until 2012. He hasn't shown any signs of being on the wain, wane or wayne (apart from some seedy tabloid shots) so it's a fair bet that they do actually want to hang onto him as a player for some time - as well they should as he has been an aver present in a side that has won the league 3 out of the 4 seasons he's been there and made the Champions League final twice, winning once ( John Terry).

Evra has signed on with manure until 2014. So that's one club down..

I'll be pissed if we go anywhere near Carlton Cole. 27, frequently injured and overall shit. Buying players from losing clubs can be bad as well as they can bring their losing attitude with them. So on every front I hope the Carlton Cole talk is just rubbish. I'd sooner have us not sign any forwards than spend anywhere near 10 million on Carlton Cole. Edit - If we were going top look at West Ham I'd sooner pickup Victor Obinna, though he's only there on loan from Inter. I'm sure they'd consider selling him as he's been on loan for a couple of seasons. Bit of a loose cannon though.

That looks much more likely though we'll probably nab a good result off more fancied opposition then cancel it out with an ugly loss to a weak side.

I'm surprised people are expecting so many wins. Winning matches takes scoring goals, an area where we're quite weak on at the moment. I hope we do win that many games but can't see it happening personally. HBA back in the squad will be good, but after such a lengthy spell out it would be silly to expect too much of him. If we can maintain our position in the top half of the table it will be an exceptional result from the players and management. Even more so when you consider the turbulence of sacking your manager and selling your best forward and leading scorer.

That's a pretty unrealistic expectation. If we'd picked up points at the same rate across the whole season we'd finish on 69 points.

Lots of his value is off the field it seems. It can be easy to discount that when thinking about players ability. On the field he does some of the little things that can make a difference but can be a little lazy when there's large distances to cover.

This tactic worked with driving the price of Carroll up, why not give it another crack with Enrique?

Less than 4 years of that and they could have bought Newcastle. At Newcastle if they showed that ambition St James' would be full. We've got a comparable squad that'd be ahead of them with the 35m reinvested (ahead even with their bent money reinvested).

35m in the bank would pull in well in excess of 1 million in 6 months assuming it was all paid up front. That's enough to buy our current strike force (Ameobi - Free, Lovenkrands - Free, Ranger - Free, Best - 1.5m)

I'd have to say he's got several valid points there. They have shown ambition above their current station and even still can't fill their stadium.

The other effect that these statements have (apart from confirming the inevitable that Enrique will be leaving) is that they will deride our chances of signing any replacement players of decent quality. From the perspective of the Club though they can't have any complaints. They undoubtedly have treated our players poorly, have mislead them on numerous occasions and been full of empty promises. As noted elsewhere if you're full of shit and talk out of your arse it will eventually catch up with you. Pretty soon (if not already) no-one of decent quality will want to deal with us because of Ashley and the way that he conducts his business. It's up to you if you want to be a rogue and do things your own way, but you can have no complaints when doing so alienates others who are happy to conform to standards. To some extent he's got away with doing things on the bodge up until now because we have some salable assets. Most notably the now departed Andy Carroll with Enrique and Tiote being the next two. Barton doesn't have a big value on the market, though he's a good player. Hatem Ben Arfa's value at the moment isn't high, but if he returns from injury well then midway through next season it could have risen substantially. After that bunch there's no-one of note, and we'll be an even less attractive prospect to incoming players. With no signings on note the crowds will begin to dwindle. Basically it all looks up the shitter. I'd love nothing more than to be proved wrong, but the writing is pretty much on the wall, written in the smeared shit of the charlatan fuckwits running the place.

Depending on the offer (sub 10m) we should keep hold of him until his contract ends which is two and a half seasons away still. Well more than 10m of value in us by having him around, makes a massive difference. I know that's not the way it will be seen though. I've been saying for ages that they should be offering him a new contract, but as it is the club are more interested in the bottom line than retaining our best and brightest.

More statements from Pardew about how we're planning on spending massive money like we did with Lovenkrands.

He's signed already, has just been on loan to Everton all this time.

It's not too late for him to come out with some lark about a bet on us to qualify for Europe. It is a fact* that he could enlighten us with plenty of facts about the whole Andy Carroll saga. * - May contain traces of truth.

Yeah, even if he did come out and put something on record he's showed that his word means fuck all. I agree with your sentiment though, because now is a crucial time for the immediate future of the club IMO. What happens between now and the start of next season will be the true indication of what we can expect over the upcoming years (until Ashely sells up).

Yep, part of me puts it at some sort of battered wife/stockholm syndrome effect in that after all the shit we've copped we're still somehow hopeful that it will all change and he'll suddenly start making the right decisions.

If we could I'm sure it would just trigger Ashley to sell more in the off-season.

Honestly though if the 35m was well invested next season and Ashely was prepared to [ay decent wages we're not that far off competing with the best teams in the league. Heck on our day this season we've been able to. We're extremely thin on in certain areas, but with some wise movements in the player market, increased wages (don't even need to be at the Michael Owen level tbh) and a continued good moral in the squad anything* is possible. Shame it's all a dream with that fucking fucking cunt in charge. * - By that I mean top 6 pushing for top 4.

Heres hoping.