We think it might be June 2011. Can you pay for him by the ounce please?

I thought it was Reid and MGP and Hoillet who were out of contract. Not Benni.

1.25m? They know where they can stick that. Trouble is, rejecting it will probably see more comments in the Press from Benni's agent about us being unreasonable on the asking price and Belly's weight balloon to 35 stone.

Imo if anyone makes an offer for him he'll be gone. Every time Sam is on SSN he seems to make a point of inviting offers by stressing we've not had any offers for him yet.

It was three years ago really.

Benni seems to be trying to ease himself out of the door here, a "back spasm" in the warm up on Monday night and a ludicrous swipe at the Villa player last night that could quite easily have earned him a red card. I would even go so far as to say he looks like he is trying to persuade Sam to offload him for peanuts. (Perhaps he wanted to go and watch the Africa Nations Cup as well with Diouf?) Unfortunately I'm not sure he's going the right way about it. Probably more likely to have the opposite effect. A few goals would be more likely to endear him to potential suitors.

Good final, a lot closer than the 7-2 scoreline suggests. Whitlock missed a couple of darts at doubles to win crucial legs and Taylor took out at least three 120 + finishes to win vital legs with Whitlock waiting on a finish. The 170 with Whitlock waiting behind on 40 being the most notable.

Whitlock/Barney was an unbelievable match. Whitlock has improved beyond all recognition over the last couple of years since he appeared in the other downmarket version of the World Championships. If he can keep that form up against Taylor it will be a good game, the worry will be that a lot ofr players go to pieces when coming up against Taylor and can't bring their best game to bear, and it ends up rout. Same thing used to happen in the 80's with snooker and Steve Davis.,

It's not an appealing prospect is it? Even if you think Beattie might be able to provide a short term fix.

Not quite sure which way to go on this. If Benni has consistently failed to meet weight targets and get himself fit enough that's his fault. Nevertheless dragging him in on his own at 7am seems a bit excessive, there must be better ways of going about it , like insisting he stay behind for extra work after the normal training is done. It does now look as though a parting of the ways is inevitable which could turn out to be a huge mistake given the paucity of our other striking options. What's 2m going to get us anyway?

Agreed. I'm not Benni's biggest fan either but with us struggling to find the back of the net I'm very uneasy with the idea of offloading our only half decent finisher. Really we should be doing the same as we did when we refused to sell RSC last January. We should be getting an additional loanee in or offloading some deadwood to allow the signing of Beattie thereby adding to our striking options not reducing them.

Not sure about that Gordon, most people remember him now obviously for his contribution to the 86 and 90 World Cups, but in my view he was much more at his managerial peak during his time at Ipswich (69-82 apparently.) What a side that was, one of the best two or three sides in England and indeed Europe consistently year in year out. George Burley was on the radio yesterday saying he only had to sign about 14 players for money over 12 years, because their youth policy was so incredibly successful. He also recalled how Robson managed to get 400,000 from Arsenal for Brian Talbot and brought in Muhren and Thyjssen (sp?) for 350k!! Anyhow regardless of how good a manager he was or wasn't it was far more important ultimately he was such a gentleman and had such class. The radio was inundated with people ringing in yesterday who'd written to Robson and without exception they'd received handwritten replies. Can you imagine that nowadays?

The situation Lucash finds himself in now at West Ham is completely different to the one he was in at Rovers. If West Ham were insane enough to offer him (say) 70k per week originally then even I couldn't necessarily blame him for refusing to accept a new deal on reduced terms of (say) 48k p.w. If it was however a similar situation to that at Rovers and he was snubbing the offer of a contract extension on the same or improved terms in the belief he could command an even greater amount again as a free agent, then he would deserve every bit of villification going from the West Ham fans. Just as he deserves it from Blackburn fans for his conduct here.

Shows how good Hiddink is tactically. He got his tactics bob on and made Barca look decidedly average over their two legs.

I'm not an Ooijer fan ability wise but there's no comparison whatsoever between Ooijer and Neill. Ooijer has never been a regular first team choice for us, but got on with it and didn't complain, is coming to the end of his career, probably didn't have much on the table from us due to his age, and had one last chance to return home. Neill, due to the lack of competition for his place was always considered a key member of the side, yet snubbed various contract offers. He was even handed the captain's armband by Hughes but chucked that back in everyone's face.

That's why I also think that in reality it's a non starter for us Eddie. Anyone going in for him would probably get him at a substantial discount to the 5.8m Newcastle paid for him, but I still reckon they'll have to pay him a very handsome wage indeed. In relation to the latest incident I can't help but feel Newcastle are looking for a scapegoat to divert attention from their predicament/and/or are looking for an excuse to shed a high earner from the wage bill bearing in mind their impending relegation. I've heard several people on the radio suggesting that had it been Ferguson or Wenger dealing with it, they'd have pretended not to have seen it or publicly supported the player then dealt with the discipline side internally and kept it all inhouse. There might be some truth in that. I wonder who leaked the details of the post match row between Barton and Shearer? If it wasn't the Club themselves trying to ease Barton out, then the player wot did it is even more culpable than Barton imo.

Well yes, I'd think he would be a good signing if there were pretty stringent safeguards in place from our point of view. Whether we could actually get those safeguards put in and Barton would agree to them as well as a pay cut is another matter entirely. Thoughts that he might be prepared to agree to agree to a "pay as you play deal" for example is completely pie in the sky imo. If Sam could somehow pull the deal off on terms acceptable to us I'd be more than prepared to back his judgement on it. I'd far rather we made a risky signing like Barton with massive scope for improvement than a "one last payday" signing with zero scope for improvement like Viduka.

1) Is he better than what we've got already? - By some distance. 2) If we were to sign him, does he deserve a clean slate based on what he actually does here? - Imo yes. 3) Can we afford his wages? Very doubtful. 4) All things taken into consideration, does he represent too much of a gamble? Imo yes. Can you imagine if he was our main summer signing on top wages (for us) and got himself sent down again?

As Barton is reportedly on about 65k p.w. at Newcastle I would have thought this is just a bit of lazy journalism - simply linking him to Sam. Can't see there's a cat in hell's chance of us actually signing him.

Quite unlike your response, obviously.

Usually agree with AESF's essays but tend to agree with you here Hughesey!. If Shearer can focus on Barton's latest indiscretion it deflects attention from his questionable contribution as managerso far.

Well done Sam. So basically we've had about a 2-3 week window around Christmas out of Benni this season when he's been at an acceptable level of fitness. Wonder how much he's earnt the rest of the time. Pity we can't dock his wages - it's a pretty fundamental breach of contract.

Hope you're right, and maybe he has matured to the point whereby he realises "only" drawing 30 kp.w. at a midtable Prem League side with a nice working environment (assuming we survive) isn't such a bad old gig after all. I still find it hard to forgive him taking until Christmas to get fully fit though.

Nice words from Benni although based on his track record I do feel he is being a little hypocritical, I reckon he'd have his bags packed faster than most if one of the "big 4" or Citeh/Villa/Spurs/Newcastle came in for him. Benni in the shape and form he was in against Citeh is a huge asset. Trouble is, does anyone have any real confidence he'll reproduce it week in week out? I don't and I'm afraid I'm starting to have similar reservations about Roque. Thing is though in the Premiership you need players with real talent if you're going to make a decent fist of it, especially when you're playing the top sides.