[Beefy 1965]

Bournemouth bulk at Defoe demand ........

£8 Million signing on fee, 80K a week = £20 Million over a 3 year deal =(130k a week) For a 34 year old !!

Not being greedy is he

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/fo...n-13251758

[Stairs]

Bournemouth bulk at Defoe demand ........

£8 Million signing on fee, 80K a week = £20 Million over a 3 year deal   =(130k a week) For a 34 year old !!

Not being greedy is he  

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/fo...n-13251758

Can't believe we would be so stupid to associate with Defoe after that display of greed

[Worldclassalbion]

I'd have him because GOALS GOALS GOALS. Everywhere he goes he gets them, Maybe Pulis could cure him of it

[BaggieSteve]

Whilst I respect the views of both arguments, I have to say I am in the Baggiesteve camp on this one.

I believe there is currently an unfortunate apathy within the club that smacks of lack of ambition and penny pinching with Charlie Taylor being a classic example. How can Pulis and Co have consistently chased him for over a year and then back off when frightened by the tribunal or fee level expected by Leeds. Has he become a poor player in that year? Has he suffered a long term career threatening injury? No on both counts.

I was full of hope with the announcement that we would be investing heavily in this Window and that we would be completing our business early. I now believe that to be a ruse to boost season ticket sales and I for one fell for it along no doubt with many others. I also sadly now believe we will end up with aging cheap 'has beens' and that hope I held that we will display some ambition, in the same way as those teams around us, will be extinguished.

As for Pulis, all of you know that the Baggieman is certainly not a fan and never will be given his boring defensive style. I find it difficult to accept the argument put forward regarding his short spell at Palace. That was now years ago and it was a case of 'shit or bust' and the gamble paid off. Had he stayed with Palace you can bet your bottom dollar he would have reverted to his usual defend, defend, defend style with which he is now tainted.

I can now see nothing in the future for us other than flirting with relegation and at best, a bottom half finish. Both Pulis and the board have had several windows to invest in an exciting future but have not really grasped the metal apart from the odd good signing. The change of ownership was last year a convenient smoke-screen to cover our lack of ambition. This summer, there is no excuse and one would hope the club will once more launch an exciting buying policy and bring in quality players of the right age and skill to cement a top half finish.

I'm not holding my breath......

The question with Taylor though, do we know we were definitely after him and if so, is he our first choice? There's a lot of information get 'leaked' to newspapers by agents just to drum up interest in their client.

The lad is out of contract, so it's an interesting one. Maybe we saw him as a squad player and would've took him if Leeds would've agreed a nominal fee outside of tribunal but decided not to gamble as they wouldn't agree to that.

I don't really understand the uproar anyway if he does go to Burnley. He's hardly proven talent. He looked very average to me in the games I saw him and couldn't force his way back into the Leeds side at the tail end of last season after injury.

If on the odd chance it is money related, it would again fall on the board rather than TP.

I can see where you're coming from regarding TPs style of play and agree, to a large extent. Although there's a lot wrong with our consecutive failure to back whoever is manager stemming from the board. This is why we will never really see what any manager is capable of.

But i'll judge this owner and TP at the end of the window.

Hi Slick, it's a fair question regarding Taylor but I think the story had run long enough and been pretty consistent in its reporting to conclude there was some mileage in it. I'm sure we were interested and, as we don't have a left back and clearly need one, I'm also assuming he wouldn't have been a squad player. Having said that, if we were to sign Robertson from Hull I'd be happy as I think he's a very good player. Our forum chat often focuses on how much money we have and what is realistic for us to achieve as a club playing in a league that has become increasingly polarised between those with huge amounts of money and those like us who are relatively wealthy but cannot compete with the obscene amounts knocking around at the top. My issue is not that I think we should be challenging for a top six finish as I recognise that, without the money from a Russian oligarch or a sovereign wealth fund, we'll be an also ran like the majority of clubs in the league. My issue is what we do with our money and the type of player we sign, which leads to the style of football we deliver. I just think that we could do something more with it that makes us more adventurous. During the back end of the season, TP was playing a midfield of Fletcher, Yacob and Livermore (two of whom he signed) which had no semblance of creativity whatsoever. My concern is that this is fundamentally his preferred approach; contain and defend. After a time, this starts to grate on the nerves, particularly at home. I'm jumping the gun as the transfer window is in its early stages and rumours abound with little hard fact. I'm prepared to wait and see, it's just that I'm lacking a bit of confidence in what may happen. Fingers crossed!

[Slick_Footwork]

Hi Slick, it's a fair question regarding Taylor but I think the story had run long enough and been pretty consistent in its reporting to conclude there was some mileage in it. I'm sure we were interested and, as we don't have a left back and clearly need one, I'm also assuming he wouldn't have been a squad player. Having said that, if we were to sign Robertson from Hull I'd be happy as I think he's a very good player. Our forum chat often focuses on how much money we have and what is realistic for us to achieve as a club playing in a league that has become increasingly polarised between those with huge amounts of money and those like us who are relatively wealthy but cannot compete with the obscene amounts knocking around at the top. My issue is not that I think we should be challenging for a top six finish as I recognise that, without the money from a Russian oligarch or a sovereign wealth fund, we'll be an also ran like the majority of clubs in the league. My issue is what we do with our money and the type of player we sign, which leads to the style of football we deliver. I just think that we could do something more with it that makes us more adventurous. During the back end of the season, TP was playing a midfield of Fletcher, Yacob and Livermore (two of whom he signed) which had no semblance of creativity whatsoever. My concern is that this is fundamentally his preferred approach; contain and defend. After a time, this starts to grate on the nerves, particularly at home. I'm jumping the gun as the transfer window is in its early stages and rumours abound with little hard fact. I'm prepared to wait and see, it's just that I'm lacking a bit of confidence in what may happen. Fingers crossed!

I'm in the camp where I can completely understand your frustration, particularly with selections. I'd agree 100% that the midfield trio mentioned lacks a quality ball player who can join in with the strikers. You need 1 of 3 doing this. I guess the unanswered question is, do we have an alternative with currently personnel? Yacob is a fantastic reader of the game and stopper, but lacks the legs to play in a 4 (in my opinion) which makes it harder for TP to put a Chadli in the attacking midfield role.

Now if the board would've released the purse strings and let us sign William Carvalho in January to replace Yacob, then I think we would've really seen if Pulis has the guts to not play 3 defensive minded players. But typically for us, he was way out of our reach.

Mozza was the other alternative, but didn't really recreate his form from previous years when deployed in the midfield 3 last season. He's been a great servant, but can't help thinking he's coming to the end at a Premier League player.

I guess we will have to see on the left back situation, but I'm not going to lose any sleep on Taylor. Maybe people have seen something I haven't on the occasions I watched him where he looked very average. For me, we should be aiming higher than someone who was second choice for a mid table Championship side at the tail end of last season. But I honestly think the fact he's English and relatively young seems to attract people.

One thing is for sure, the fact we're all fed up at missing out on Taylor (potentially) shows one thing, we really could do with signing someone early, just as a signal of ambition. A lot of our competition have snapped someone up by now.

Left back is an area we should've fixed last season. I know we made concrete bids for Martin Olsson when he was at Norwich and Jeff Schlup last season at Leicester, but typically got outbid. We're definitely in the market for one, but there seems to be a dearth of talent in this position so everyone is after the same players (in fact, there's a dearth of talent in world football full stop).

Incidentally, a friend of mine works for a club and we were talking about transfer rumours. Their media department collect a list of every player they are linked with an report back. According to him, out of over 60 names they were linked with so far over the summer, only 5 players had actually been watched and considered. So I really wouldn't be shocked if most of what we read is complete cobblers about every side. We've been particularly decent at keeping moves under wraps in recent years. From what I remember, Rondon arrived as the record signing with no rumour at all.

[Stairs]

Phew - Defoe signed for Bournemouth.

[aries22]

Yes, we were definitely in for Charlie Taylor, because TP referred to the deal going to arbitration and potentially ending up too costly for Albion.
And yes, he would have been first-choice LB as he would have been the only orthodox LB we had!
I'm reading on BBC Sport Gossip that the Daily Mirror says Jonny Evans is considering his position at Albion in light of Albion letting Darren Fletcher leave. If that's true I'll eat my hat. Hasn't Evans just signed a new deal with us at £100,000 a week, and what does it matter to a defender if a midfielder leaves? Daily Mirror? Rag, more like.

---

Slick, according to Leicester fans, they were delighted to get - was it £12 million? - from Palace. They wished him luck, but said he was never a full back. That said, I don't recall how he played last season.

[Slick_Footwork]

Yes, we were definitely in for Charlie Taylor, because TP referred to the deal going to arbitration and potentially ending up too costly for Albion.
And yes, he would have been first-choice LB as he would have been the only orthodox LB we had!
I'm reading on BBC Sport Gossip that the Daily Mirror says Jonny Evans is considering his position at Albion in light of Albion letting Darren Fletcher leave. If that's true I'll eat my hat. Hasn't Evans just signed a new deal with us at £100,000 a week, and what does it matter to a defender if a midfielder leaves? Daily Mirror? Rag, more like.

---

Slick, according to Leicester fans, they were delighted to get - was it £12 million? - from Palace. They wished him luck, but said he was never a full back. That said, I don't recall how he played last season.

Regarding Evans... The newspapers just write tripe to fill the pages. I guess as Fletcher came from Utd and so did Evans, that's their 'reasoning' for the story. I'm sure in actual fact Evans knows that Fletcher is ageing and not really up to it.

As for Schlupp, I really rate from what I've seen so could've been a lucky escape. But the fact TP was after him, at least suggests he's been looking at younger full backs for some time. That is of course, unless he was planning to play him on the wing - although we were not short in that department.

Don't think he figured all that much for Palace as they signed Van Aanholt at the same time. Both big money and similar in terms of position, so a bit strange.

Would be nice if we could sign someone soon, just to signal some intent for the coming season!

[Beefy 1965]

Andrea Ranocchia

http://c.newsnow.co.uk/A/891782044?-11200:789:0

[drewks]

Stairs - can you please DELETE THIS THREAD!
.......it's impossible not to look at it at least a couple of times every day, but all we see is the usual b*llocks (sorry BV) .

Wake me up at the end of the month