nzlatic

Agreed. Not sure he's shown enough for someone to offer that. Plus it's now public knowledge we're looking to sell before losing him for nothing. 250k seems more realistic.

I'm in. Enjoy my £5 - I've got England getting to the semis...

Someone used the term asset strippers - which suggested the owners were selling off all our best players to line their pockets and leave the club in the :censored:. My view is that Johnson has let the players go he either didn't want or knew he couldn't keep and has replaced them with good signings. So although not necessarily adding to what we had before in terms of numbers, we might be improving the overall quality of the squad.

Lighten up mate, they're fun fun fun.

Well yeah. Were you expecting us to keep everyone and add to the squad? Key thing is how good are those replacements compared to what has left? We won't know that until next season obviously, but on the face of it looks like decent quality brought in rather than cheap options.

IF Worral signs to give us more wide options, then are we just 1 striker away from a full squad? These asset strippers are getting things done early this year. Maybe looking to sell on again before the end of August?

Does that make Connor Brown the exciting one?!

Off the back of Tarky didn't we make a few signings that ultimately put us on a long unbeaten run? Hardly asset stripping or a lack of investment in the squad.

I think they do, regularly. But agreed, definitely not in this case.

This is a great point. Players are constantly holding clubs to ransom so if we're taking a firm stance on what we think players are worth and not budging then fair play. I'd rather the club be run that way rather than giving in to agent wage demands. It's June, 2 months to find a replacement. Plenty of time.

Whether that's true and Corney is cackling all the way to the bank with the saving in wages, if Weso's replacement is anything like Grounds' is then I'd be pretty happy.

Who sees it as a step up? Maybe it's as simple as them offering more money? We haven't sunk anywhere - we've been at this level for a long time now and lost out on players like this before. By the sounds of it LJ has a budget and is sticking to it, and feels that that budget is better spent elsewhere. Fair play to him. Let's see how the summer pans out before toys start flying out of the pram.

Don't really get why people get a kick out of getting others to believe a fairly plausible rumour. It's not like he's convinced people we're signing lampard. Nice one mate.

Account settled - pounds for points for March, April and May and my £20 staying up pledge all paid at last! Great initiative. Looking forward to more of the same next year.

On the other hand, if it's public knowledge then opens it up for agents to demand more money if they know we've had a couple of million come in. Is there a reason fans need to know every detail other than curiosity?

Those payments may not be public knowledge. So this thread will probably run and run with rumours and FACTs from those "in the know" even after he's sold!

SSN saying cut price fee maybe based on appearances. How would that work with our cut? It'll be "undisclosed" all over again!

He played 2 games, has no medal and missed out on a World Cup in Brazil. He should have pushed for a move in January at the latest.

Don't get this about him - it's World Cup year. Surely he would have known he wasn't going to play. A move last summer could have seen him playing regularly and in the World Cup squad. Instead he chose to sit on a bench and pick up a wage.

I'm pretty much in the same boat. 15 years ago I used to stand in pubs and sing the national anthem for :censored:ty midweek friendlies. Now I don't even watch qualifiers properly on the tv. I'm partly putting that down to being mid 30s now, but a lot of it is to do with the players. To go from Butcher, Pearce, Gazza, Platt, Lineker, Ince, Adams, Shearer etc who you could really get behind to Ferdinand, Lampard, Cole, Rooney - all precious wankers who earn far too much. Plus out of all the players of the last 10 years or so, how many played overseas? How many want to better themselves as footballers and people and how many just want to negiotiate the biggest possible contract whilst their wags can concentrate on being papped for OK? I've no idea what society is like in other countries, but England is all about fame and fortune, not achievement. How many of our champions in any sport go on to be multiple champions? They get to a certain level and they're happy with their lot. It's just so hard to get behind the team when they don't seem to care whether they win or not. The difference in class between the players from the 90s I've mentioned and those from the 00s is massive, but the 90s lot got to 2 semi finals. The "better footballers" of the 00s and 10s have done nothing.

Mills brought up the overhaul of the loan system, Claridge asked what was wrong with it and Mills gave the Barkley example. He didn't elaborate on it. Claridge went on to raise the real issues with the loan system - namely it's hard for teams to afford to loan the quality players because they earn so much. Mills also championed the feeder team idea, seemingly saying that part of the problem is that young english players go out on loan and don't get coached properly. So with the feeder system the Prem teams would be able to "control that". Claridge kicked off saying that you can't have prem teams taking over the running of league teams.

Had a listen to the Mills v Claridge debate. It started with Dyke being interviewed and when challenged about the proposals his answer was along the lines of "well, if people don't want the england team to do well then we won't bother". Terrible, childish reaction. Claridge absolutely destroyed Mills. The coaching point was raised and that's apparently being looked at as well later in the year. It's baffling to think that the B team proposal is the first thing to suggest over the lack of coaches. Mills also talks about how the loan system is failing. His example is Ross Barkley who went to Leeds on loan but didn't get played. Yep, cos it's really gone to :censored: for him since then hasn't it Mills? The people they've got to argue the case for this haven't put forward one point yet that can't be shot down.

May have missed it but has there been any talk of how they plan to price matches? They won't need the money so could charge £10 or £5 even. League 1, 2 and conference teams couldn't afford to drop prices so would naturally lose floating fans to prem b teams.

The FA should look closer to home when it comes to the national team. The hotel where they're staying for the World Cup is 93rd on Tripadvisor and is 9 miles across town from the training base. The traffic is so bad in Rio they could be spending hours a day on the bus. The airport is further. Compare that to Holland who are staying in Rio but only a couple of miles from their training base and Germany who have built their own private beach resort. Granted this info has come from some pretty dirty daily rags but having spoken to someone who has lived in Brazil they're pretty accurate about the traffic.

Came away today having seen this new look defence for the first time and thought its key that we retain Wilson, Rachubka and Brown. All outstanding. Grounds has always been steady but if he is one of the higher earners it won't be a disaster if he left.