Henry

[selassie]

i'm not just relying on the summer, i've given a break down of the cost of their star players, purchased over the past 2/3 years. no different to us.

apart from spending and amounts, then how can we talk about being in the same market as spurs, as you wanted to a few posts ago?

you honestly think bale, modric and vaart will be there in two years?

I probably didn't articulate what I meant regarding spending and amounts and retaining players. For a start they the Spuds don't sell 40million worth of talent every year.

Essentially what I was trying to say was even if we spend the same as them the fact that they manage to retain their star players whilst we don't makes the situation even more baffling/concerning.

If Spurs finish top 4, Bale, Modric and Van Der Vaart will no doubt stay there, they manage to retain them without even offering top 4 football, why would they not if they manage to finish top 4. Anyway I think they'll make serious moves in the market if they do finish top 4 which makes it all the more depressing.

[Kano]

they sold two crown jewels in the past 5 years, carrick and berbatov - they sell when the price is right, like anyone else.

we manage to retain star players but not forever because we can't pay the wages to them all at the same time. so they get tempted and move on. the same with tottenham.

if spurs were retaining their main players for years and years, they wouldn't have been in the cl just the once.

[Niall_Quinn]

I probably didn't articulate what I meant regarding spending and amounts and retaining players. For a start they the Spuds don't sell 40million worth of talent every year.

Essentially what I was trying to say was even if we spend the same as them the fact that they manage to retain their star players whilst we don't makes the situation even more baffling/concerning.

If Spurs finish top 4, Bale, Modric and Van Der Vaart will no doubt stay there, they manage to retain them without even offering top 4 football, why would they not if they manage to finish top 4. Anyway I think they'll make serious moves in the market if they do finish top 4 which makes it all the more depressing.

We're very similar to the spuds now, about at their level I'd say. This represents a massive drop for us, of course. I don't think the ambition should be limited to matching clubs we used to wipe our arse with. That's less than the bare minimum.

[selassie]

they sold two crown jewels in the past 5 years, carrick and berbatov - they sell when the price is right, like anyone else.

we manage to retain star players but not forever because we can't pay the wages to them all at the same time . so they get tempted and move on. the same with tottenham.

if spurs were retaining their main players for years and years, they wouldn't have been in the cl just the once.

Yeah, they lost 2 stars in Carrick & Berbatov & I do agree to an extent about the price is right.

Well I personally believe we could and should do more to retain our star players given that we've been a regular top 4 club for a very long time. I don't think we can't pay our star players more, it's more a case of we won't.

I'm not even convinced we always sell for the right price, we practically gave Cesc away.

A lot of my gripes are to do with the minimal amount of effort we seem to put in to improve the playing squad. We have a "passive/laissez faire" attitude to squad building.

[selassie]

We're very similar to the spuds now, about at their level I'd say. This represents a massive drop for us, of course. I don't think the ambition should be limited to matching clubs we used to wipe our arse with. That's less than the bare minimum.

Yup, this is what grates me, it's almost like we've given up.

[Niall_Quinn]

We have a car boot sale approach to the transfer market. Every year we gather up all the free and cheap stuff we can find, we load it in a car boot. Other clubs come along and spot the good stuff and we charge them 50p, the crap stuff doesn't sell and we are stuck with it until somebody asks if they can borrow it. Occasionally we get an idiot buyer who pays way over the odds and that's our definition of success.

[Kano]

Yeah, they lost 2 stars in Carrick & Berbatov & I do agree to an extent about the price is right.

Well I personally believe we could and should do more to retain our star players given that we've been a regular top 4 club for a very long time. I don't think we can't pay our star players more, it's more a case of we won't.

I'm not even convinced we always sell for the right price, we practically gave Cesc away.

A lot of my gripes are to do with the minimal amount of effort we seem to put in to improve the playing squad. We have a "passive/laissez faire" attitude to squad building.

let's talk about the players we wouldn't pay. nasri? well, we can see what paying him that amount is doing for his career now. ade? moving here, there and everywhere since he left and has hardly settled past 'first season' performances. have i missed anyone out? and cesc had nothing to do with wages.

[selassie]

let's talk about the players we wouldn't pay. nasri? well, we can see what paying him that amount is doing for his career now. ade? moving here, there and everywhere since he left and has hardly settled past 'first season' performances. have i missed anyone out? and cesc had nothing to do with wages.

It doesn't matter if Nasri is stinking up Citeh, it's really doesn't benefit us if the money we recouped from him sits in the bank...or in our case we replace him with a player who may come good in 3 seasons time. I accept that the Nasri situation was maybe a little complexed in the sense that he was close to running down his contract. Ade was also very good for us, it's irrevelant what he's done since, at Arsenal he was a class act. Sad thing is we sell him to a rival who have now leapfrogged us and they then go and lend to a team who have now become a rival of ours.

Cesc had nothing to do with wages but the fee we got for him was pitiful.

In terms of missing players off the list, well whilst the likes of Clichy, Hleb, Kolo & Flamini aren't star players they were all part of the first team when we sold them.

[Kano]

it does matter as you have to ask yourself, would it have been worth spending those wages on those players? both of these players were good for one season, maximum.

flamini and hleb fall into that exact same group.

the point you raised was that we lose big players because we don't pay their wages, i would suggest that we have lost nothing by letting these guys go.

where we have failed is to reinvest in the 'right' players, like tottenham have done so well in the past couple of years.

[Power n Glory]

it does matter as you have to ask yourself, would it have been worth spending those wages on those players? both of these players were good for one season, maximum.

flamini and hleb fall into that exact same group.

the point you raised was that we lose big players because we don't pay their wages, i would suggest that we have lost nothing by letting these guys go.

where we have failed is to reinvest in the 'right' players, like tottenham have done so well in the past couple of years.

Selling those players had a ripple effect. It did damage to the morale of the squad and hasn't helped our rep.