?% Villa. Martinez, MON and the pie eaters

[Greg N'Ash]

A bit of both. i'm sure he'd given the go-ahead but as he was no longer manager when Milner left it can't be taken off his net spend.


*snigger*

Is English your first language?

seems clear enough to me. Like taking off Barry's fee from Gregory's net spend because he went for a profit after he left.

[Villa'Zawg]

Right, so you've changed your mind about him selling Milner then?

no i think its obvious he wanted to sell him the way he let the cat out the bag without telling Milner but he never had to cope without him - he fucked off. I don't see why this is so confusing for you. He had his team, the finished product, built at huge expense and it failed. Whether he sold Milner or not after the failure doesn't really matter does it?

What's confusing is your assertion that the net spend was £80m, when if he sold Milner it was £54m. I don't see why this is so confusing for you.

I am confused what point your trying to make or why you think its so important, i must admit. If you want to say "MON was a failure who wasted 52m and nearly bankrupted the club before leaving us unprepared on the eve of the season" in preference to "MON was a failure who wasted 80m and nearly bankrupted the club before leaving us unprepared on the eve of the season" then thats fine with me Percy. Either will do.

How come the chairman was able to charge the club £12m+ in management fees and debt charges that year if we were nearly bankrupt?

How come we were in 5th place after 6 games if we were unprepared for the eve of the season?

Just asking like.

[Greg N'Ash]

hmmmm, so leaving us with no manager just before kick-off and no chance of getting in an employed replacement doesn't class as un-prepared? An interesting concept even for you. I take it you noticed the size of Dunne last season?

[Percy McCarthy]

A bit of both. i'm sure he'd given the go-ahead but as he was no longer manager when Milner left it can't be taken off his net spend.


*snigger*

Is English your first language?

seems clear enough to me. Like taking off Barry's fee from Gregory's net spend because he went for a profit after he left.

Except you're not saying Gregory sold Barry are you? Then again, who knows?

[Greg N'Ash]

A bit of both. i'm sure he'd given the go-ahead but as he was no longer manager when Milner left it can't be taken off his net spend.


*snigger*

Is English your first language?

seems clear enough to me. Like taking off Barry's fee from Gregory's net spend because he went for a profit after he left.

Except you're not saying Gregory sold Barry are you? Then again, who knows?

what can i say..it seems logical to me to caculate a manager's net spend from the time he arrived to when he left. Milner was after so i wouldn't include it just as GH probably knew Young was being sold and agreed to it but i wouldn't include it in his.

[pauliewalnuts]

How come the chairman was able to charge the club £12m+ in management fees and debt charges that year if we were nearly bankrupt?

Whilst I've supported Randy firmly in the past, i must say, I never understood the need for those enormous management charges.

[Percy McCarthy]

A bit of both. i'm sure he'd given the go-ahead but as he was no longer manager when Milner left it can't be taken off his net spend.


*snigger*

Is English your first language?

seems clear enough to me. Like taking off Barry's fee from Gregory's net spend because he went for a profit after he left.

Except you're not saying Gregory sold Barry are you? Then again, who knows?

what can i say..it seems logical to me to caculate a manager's net spend from the time he arrived to when he left. Milner was after so i wouldn't include it just as GH probably knew Young was being sold and agreed to it but i wouldn't include it in his.

Oh dear, I thought the 'snigger' remark was an admission on your part that you were talking bollocks. Now it seems that you are believing your self-contradictory rubbish again.

Back to square one: so you're admitting he didn't sell him then? Do bear in mind that Milner actually played and scored a goal for us after O'Neill left.

[Greg N'Ash]

MON made press comments about how milner was going to leave ages before he left upsetting milner in the process. Whether you believe that was intended to burn Milnerr's bridges so he could get the money or he was just resigned to him leaving is up to personal viewpoint, but i think its pretty clear MON was okay with him being sold.

[Somniloquism]

yeah i take your point but wasn't his spending the main reason why we bought Heskey?- ie that was all we could afford? If we'd hadn't spent 5m on Harwood we'd have 8.5m, kept cahil and not bought Davies probably 16m, more than enough to get a decent striker if not an Arshavin. You can quite easily argue a case that the above and the likes of Sidwell, Shorey etc.. should never have been bought in the first place.

I agree that MON supposedly spent the whole years budget in the summer which meant Heskey was probably the only English option he could sign, but it was the purchase of Milner that pushed us over. We also bought Brad x 2, L Young, Cueller, Davies, Shorey (so a whole defence) and Sidwell in midfield. I don't remember too many people stating we shouldn't buy any of them at the time with statements that Sidwell was a good buy at £5mil and a ready made Barry replacement when he goes to Liverpool and a certain Nasher stating we wouldn't get Cueller as he will be going to Manure. In fact the only grumbling I remember was why did we have to spend the amount on Young when we could have had him cheaper 12 months earlier which was a good question, and £12million for Milner is overpriced (which was also a good statement but we then doubled the money on him 2 years later).

You could argue that we could have saved £3mil by keeping Cahill and not signing Davies or Cueller (plus wages) and maybe Cahill might have held the defence together when Laursen got crocked (a lot of pressure on a still unproven 22 year old at the time) and maybe MON would have finally spent money on a decent striker, (he never seemed to have managed that before with us,) but we could also have not bought a good striker or Cahill might not have gelled with Laursen and we could have been 10-11th for the season.

[Greg N'Ash]

I agree there's a lot of what if's but i'd say if he'd kept olof that would have given us an alternative to cahill at no cost. I wasn't against the signing of cuellar - i still don't think he's  a bad player, the others: shorey was a disaster from day 1 but i can't remember what i thought of him before he'd played for us. Sidwell, well i remember groaning at the amount of people who seemed to think he was lampard mk2, so personally of his signings then i wouldn't have signed sidwell or Davies which again is the best part of 15m. Either way whether we rated them before they arrived or not the fact remains they were crap which is down to the boss

[Villa'Zawg]

I'm not questioning your honesty at all, I  - and others -saying the figures you use are spurious. I will also say that you are quick to claim we, allegedly, spend less than the clubs you consider to be our rivals. You never bring other, similar-sized clubs, into these equations. Why is this?

You accusing anyone else of snide remarks is rich, to put it mildly. Surely you remember a couple of days ago, when you said I should have told you about a meeting that hadn't then taken place and should behave differently in my work. This, from someone who has just admitted yet again that they are unable to answer a straight question without resorting to abuse.

I'm pleased you're not questioning my honesty. You don't have to rely on the figures I say we, allegedly, spend. You could have a clear opinion and knowledge about such things yourself and I'd be happy to discuss your figures. I'm also happy to discuss "similar-sized clubs" whenever someone wants to make a relevant post about them.

I do remember a couple of days ago when I alluded to the fact that you complained that one of the other attendees at the meeting with McLeish had gone public and not treated it as the off the record briefing it was supposed to be. I never said or thought that you should have told me, I suggested you might consider being upfront about such things if you're going to tell people what to think.

Since when is questioning my support of the club a straight question? (Didn't there used to be a site rule about such things?) I not only admit that I'm unable to answer such a question without resorting to abuse, I fucking well guarantee that there would be abuse in any straight answer I gave to it.

[Percy McCarthy]

MON made press comments about how milner was going to leave ages before he left upsetting milner in the process. Whether you believe that was intended to burn Milnerr's bridges so he could get the money or he was just resigned to him leaving is up to personal viewpoint, but i think its pretty clear MON was okay with him being sold.

In answer to my simple question, does that mean 'yes, I'm admitting MON didn't sell him'?

[Greg N'Ash]

MON made press comments about how milner was going to leave ages before he left upsetting milner in the process. Whether you believe that was intended to burn Milnerr's bridges so he could get the money or he was just resigned to him leaving is up to personal viewpoint, but i think its pretty clear MON was okay with him being sold.

In answer to my simple question, does that mean 'yes, I'm admitting MON didn't sell him'?

*sigh* please for love of god tell me what you want to hear. Do i think MON had agreed to sell Milner? Yes. Do i think it was all done by the time he left? no

[Greg N'Ash]

 erm wrong thread

[dave.woodhall]

I'm not questioning your honesty at all, I  - and others -saying the figures you use are spurious. I will also say that you are quick to claim we, allegedly, spend less than the clubs you consider to be our rivals. You never bring other, similar-sized clubs, into these equations. Why is this?

You accusing anyone else of snide remarks is rich, to put it mildly. Surely you remember a couple of days ago, when you said I should have told you about a meeting that hadn't then taken place and should behave differently in my work. This, from someone who has just admitted yet again that they are unable to answer a straight question without resorting to abuse.

I'm pleased you're not questioning my honesty. You don't have to rely on the figures I say we, allegedly, spend. You could have a clear opinion and knowledge about such things yourself and I'd be happy to discuss your figures. I'm also happy to discuss "similar-sized clubs" whenever someone wants to make a relevant post about them.

I do remember a couple of days ago when I alluded to the fact that you complained that one of the other attendees at the meeting with McLeish had gone public and not treated it as the off the record briefing it was supposed to be. I never said or thought that you should have told me, I suggested you might consider being upfront about such things if you're going to tell people what to think.

Since when is questioning my support of the club a straight question? (Didn't there used to be a site rule about such things?) I not only admit that I'm unable to answer such a question without resorting to abuse, I fucking well guarantee that there would be abuse in any straight answer I gave to it.

Paragraph one - you never mention the spending of any club except those you reckon spend more than us. Perhaps if you did, your evidence might be treated a bit more seriously.

Paragraph two, in your words - "When you were posting in support of the board at the height of "the McLeish troubles", I think you should have mentioned in GM at least that you'd been to a briefing with McLeish, before having it exposed on another website."

As explained, I couldn't have mentioned being at a meeting before it had taken place. 'exposed' - like it was something to hide. Very emotive.

Paragraph three - thank you for admitting you lack the ability to answer a question without reporting to foul language and abuse.