Fact : I'm bored

Blues1 how many of those were first choice signings and Murphy please it took 5 attepmts to sign him and wickham was down to the coaches and management team in his ear making sure he wanted to go nowhere

i think CLegg has a role - managing the club it self but we need a man ?or woman to do the player negociations something like a director of football.

i agree the player may have been greedy but when we are his first vchoice geographically as we were led to beleive then the money should almost have sorted it self out.

I have negociated million pound contracts for people and business for years and know it is not always about the money but more often than not the product and how it is sold will determin if some one is wiling to buy it or sign up for it.


this is where the club is failing and what i beleive clegg needs help with,

In principal I agree with a wage structure as there are too many greedy players and their agents are bleeding the game dry. However, given this stance we are always likely to miss out when faced with competition for players. This will clearly hamper our ambition if we have a realisitic one.

I wouldn't blindly criticise Clegg for being incompetent as we have no idea what the deals on offer are. However I would suggest Clegg needs to get far smarter in the way we present deals and needs to start raising his game.

The pay structure can still be the basic starting point, but I would argue that both Norris and McAuley could potentially be considered worth more because they have service under their belts and have proven that they both can perform to high standards in this league. Also by signing a new contract they will in theory save the club money by not having to invest in transfer fees to replace. If some of this saved (transfer replacement) money was invested back into a significant bonus for good players to sign a new contract then the basic wage structure could be preserved but supplemented in other cash incentives.

Somebody posted earlier about incentives with Charlie Austin, I agree. Firstly scoring goals gets you out of this division and strikers will always command more than other players. Paying generous bonus on top in terms of goals and assist may just be a way to ensure that a 20 goal a season striker does in fact have one of best deal at the club if not in the Championship.

bluekeen - I think in todays world of football Agents drive the cart - Lets be quite honest - I do not think CA would have been too involved in the discussions . Football is about money today - - Ipswich Town as a club is far better in facilities etc than Burnley - but it is all about The agents saying to their players I will get you the best deal etc etc .. Burnley - in Prem last year etc etc PLUS he knows Eddie Howe and that is a huge plus for Burnley

Just remember were you heard it first i all told you on here last night that we weren't going to get AUSTIN he wanted 12k a week town offered only 6k you cant blame the young striker. while Mr CLEGG is on 2 million a year

Phew - Passionate bunch aren't we?!! I think we can all agree one thing though - It's all wearing a little bit thin now isn't it. We can all kid ourselves (and hope and pray) that Austin fails at Burnley but I suspect like other players we've missed out on this season, he will prove to be a success and those teams will benefit from it as slip further down the table.

This is all very unsettling for the fans, but how do the players feel?!! I imagine they feel equally if not more unsettled by this. It's not doing anyone any good.

I can't believe that for the first time for a while I really believed the club had some ambition and wwhen the news of this fantastic signing was all over Sky news last night and that Ipswich had beaten other big clubs to the signing I honestly thought we might have turned the corner.

Alas....its same old same old. Where we go now, is anyone's guess!

I'm delighted we have Bullard but let's face it loan signing are easy with only £10,000 per week it's not a problem for the club.You can almost guarentee it won't be permenant. I'm so Pi$$ed off that Austin hasn't signed. You can put your money on it it's down to the dough. SC & ME Are letting down the club, the manager, and the fans in not doing the deals for quality players to get this club moving. Whilst we have these big wigs at the top we are not going anywhere. They can't organise a pi$$ up in a brewery. Do they love ITFC Like us fans? Not a chance. We are football club trying to run like a normal company in town and it's obvious it's not working. I'm always going to behind Jewell, the players, and the coaches, but I'm longer behind are board. It's discraceful and I think we need to show how feel. Clegg f*** off you useless idiot. You know nothing about are club or football. Rant over :)

Don't get too excited people - this club is showing all the signs of going nowhere, other than the wrong direction.
Yes,12K a week is a lot of money - but it is the going rate for the level of player that Austin currently is.
For f---s sake get real Evans & Co.
Wonder how long it will be before Jewell get's disillusioned ? - it will happen !

Why blame Clegg, Marcus Evens sets the budget. Burnley have a thing called a premiership parachute payment, they didnt throw money at staying in that league, they planned for the possibility of relegation so not to get into debt or suffer bankruptcy. This puts them at an advantage for both fees and personel terms. Burnley also look a better bet for promotion at this moment in time,presuming that Charlie Austin is ambitious. How far do you meet players wage demands ? ( or moan about their high wages ) The object of premiership football is well nigh impossible with the current wage structure unless you have a manager capable of picking up lower league gems cheaply ( like buying Austin 2 years ago ) or skilled at maximising average players to perform as an effective team ie Alf Ramsey or Paul Lambert. Hoping that Paul Jewell can do this is the best hope unless Marcus increases the budget particularly with regard to wages.