Arsenal

[gkmacca]

I certainly don't recall anything of the kind being said at the time.

What do you make of Hunter BTW? Spanish football expert or not, he clearly has a very personal bee in his bonnet about Suarez for some reason, to the extent of contriving never even to mention his name when discussing Barca.

Yes, I don't know him, but I gather from people who do that, since he 'went native' as a Spain-based hack, he's very keen to eclipse Ballague as the great star of Spanish reporting, and like Ballague he has a strong entrepreneurial bent that makes him think of himself as a brand. And I think he sees the Suarez thing as something that makes him more distinctive.

 

[Silver Sean]

Yes, I don't know him, but I gather from people who do that, since he 'went native' as a Spain-based hack, he's very keen to eclipse Ballague as the great star of Spanish reporting, and like Ballague he has a strong entrepreneurial bent that makes him think of himself as a brand. And I think he sees the Suarez thing as something that makes him more distinctive.

Ha ha ha. What a fucking dipshit.

 

[Silver Sean]

That wasn't the way it went down. It was Uncle Roy's individual fault, not the club's - the poor sap was totally dominated by McMoneyman and made an initial offer without getting it approved by the board, who refused to sanction it and made a lesser offer. You might argue it's understandable that McMoneyman should see his @rse over it (though his own behaviour towards Uncle Roy was largely to blame for the way things happened, and incidentally was probably the reason why the board refused to back the initial offer) but the way he then kidded on he might sign a new deal when he had already signed a pre-contract with Real, and cheated the club out of a fee altogether in the process, was despicable. I'm staggered we've taken him back on the staff now TBH.

Not often I disagree with you Jules, but I'll never understand how a player who was with us since he was 10 or something and was our best player in an underachieving side for fucking years is a villan for choosing to go abroad on a free transfer. It's called making a living. The idea that he fucked us over is ridiculous to me. He gave everything for us for along time. He was surrounded by peers making more cash and winning things and he and his girlfriend fancied a lifestyle in a different country. Never had an issue with it then. Don't now. Good luck to anyone who does it. Anything he 'owed' us he paid off in spades.

 

[Silver Sean]

They're all wankers. Suarez signed a new contract and claimed he was committed to the club in the long run. No doubt the club, with its sad obsession with PR, was complicit in that, but he's an odious poppet of puss who no doubt is now only happy because he's living in driving distance of his dear old mouthy dad-in-law. He's now playing in a league of about four competitive teams with the Spanish Harlem Globetrotters and I couldn't give a rat's arse how the toothy twat feels about the ease of his excellence.

I'm genuinely delighted when he scores a worldy. He came to us for a lot of money, was fucking brilliant for the time he was here, went to a better team and we got a shitload of money. That's football. If Barca were in the doldrums and we were in the top three teams in Europe he would have done it the other way round. But we're not.

 

[Judge Jules]

Sean: I respect that, mate, but I totally disagree, for a whole variety of reasons:

1. As I've said repeatedly on here in the past when this subject's come up, he's a villain not for choosing to go abroad but for the chiselling, dishonest way he went about it. Even Owen eventually came clean and enabled us to get a fee.

2. Please spare me the "he gave everything" flannel. For one thing he b****y didn't - he spent as long as Torres slacking off at the tail end of his time here. For another, we did at least as much for him as he did for us, giving him his chance in the first place and developing him as a player.

 

[localny]

It's all in the past eh!