Gareth Barry

[tim cahill]

It's great value mate.

Great value is signing a 24 year old tim Cahill for £1.5m or a 23 year old arteta for £2m. Spending £12m or so over 3 years on a player who will more than likely be a squad player in a years time seems far from great value to me.

 

[Penno]

Great value is signing a 24 year old tim Cahill for £1.5m or a 23 year old arteta for £2m. Spending £12m or so over 3 years on a player who will more than likely be a squad player in a years time seems far from great value to me.

Why don't you marry David Moyes then?

 

[BoysInBlue]

3 year deal for a player who'll be 34 in February is totally daft.

Not really. Distin just signed a new contract that keeps him at the club until next summer, and he's 37 in December.

Barry will only be 36 when this deal expires.

 

[Brennan]

Not really. Distin just signed a new contract that keeps him at the club until next summer, and he's 37 in December.

Barry will only be 36 when this deal expires.

A one year deal then...

 

[tim cahill]

Why don't you marry David Moyes then?

What an odd response.

 

[boris]

Great value is signing a 24 year old tim Cahill for £1.5m or a 23 year old arteta for £2m. Spending £12m or so over 3 years on a player who will more than likely be a squad player in a years time seems far from great value to me.

Why will he be a squad player in 1 years time?

He's outstanding, it's easy to see why he's been so highly rated. He's the best English holding
Midfielder in the country who's looked after himself very well and doesn't rely on his legs.

We'll have him in our first team for the full 3 yrs I reckon.

 

[BoysInBlue]

Great value is signing a 24 year old tim Cahill for £1.5m or a 23 year old arteta for £2m. Spending £12m or so over 3 years on a player who will more than likely be a squad player in a years time seems far from great value to me.

Great value is having a manager that signs Barry and leads us to our highest top flight points total for 27 years.

I think Martinez knows what he's doing lad.

 

[Brownie]

Yes, it's daft.

The MLS want him now, i doubt they'll want him when he's 36 and even i they did they'd just wait until he was a free transfer. Nobody's going to pay decent money for a 35 year old.

While teams like United or Arsenal are giving one year deals to players over 30, we're handing a 3 year deal to a 34 year old who was blowing out his arse at the end of last season.

Similar to the Howard deal, it's too much. If it's true.

They'll easily want him when he's 36. Who knows, maybe he'll play one more season for us and then go. I can't see him being happy to sit on the bench at any point, he doesn't seem like that kind of player at all.

 

[Brennan]

What an odd response.

Somebody's been on the ale

 

[ah11984]

Would be happy with the permanent deal but if we're splitting hairs would prefer a 2 year deal to a 3 year one. 3 years is a little excessive for a 33 year old.

 

[Brennan]

Great value is having a manager that signs Barry and leads us to our highest top flight points total for 27 years.

I think Martinez knows what he's doing lad.

If you're going to say that to anybody who disagrees with something Martinez does we may as well close the forum.

And by the way:

Every manager makes mistakes.

 

[BoysInBlue]

A one year deal then...

Distin signed for Everton when he was 32, and will still be playing for us aged 37, because he's a very physically fit player.

Barry signed for us last season at the same age, 32. Barry is a similarly physically fit player that rarely gets injured.

 

[tim cahill]

Somebody's been on the ale

Not me.

 

[Brennan]

Distin signed for Everton when he was 32, and will still be playing for us aged 37, because he's a very physically fit player.

Barry signed for us last season at the same age, 32. Barry is a similarly physically fit player that rarely gets injured.

Until he does. Distin is the exception and his fitness is remarkable. If you watched us last season you'd have seen Barry struggling towards the end, and that is going to get worse and worse over the next three years.

Listen, you can go on about how fit Distin is and how Martinez knows what he's doing, i don't even think this is a Martinez issue. We as a club have a history of giving players contracts which are longer then they should be. Osman, Howard, Neville, and now Barry.

There's a reason teams like United don't give three year deals to players of that age.

 

[BoysInBlue]

If you're going to say that to anybody who disagrees with something Martinez does we may as well close the forum.

Not every manager achieved what Martinez did. Not Royle, not Smith, not Moyes.

To even question Martinez ability to get value is ludicrous, after his wheeling and dealing in the loan market last season. If ever a manager gets great deals, it is Martinez. And the player you highlighted was a free transfer that played 7 games last season. I recall Moyes signing a terrible centre half, not on a free, but for £5.5m. He was that bad, he lasted 4 months before being binned off, and we had to bring back Alan Stubbs from Sunderland to get a degree of stability back and starve off a whiff of a relegation battle.