Nile Ranger

[tans]

i cant believe we ended up with him.
fuck me he was dire

[Reg Smeeton]

 In the top 20 young English players according to an article today's Guardian....

[pauld]

In the top 20 young English players according to an article today's Guardian....

Sure that wasn't just a Grauniad typo for "muggers"?

[JPC82]

good player, malpas doesnt reconize talent we already know that

[pauld]

good player, malpas doesnt reconize talent we already know that

I thought the issue was we wanted to sign him but didn't offer him enough money? So was that down to Malpas not recognising talent or budget constraints imposed on him? Did he want to sign the player but was told "OK, but you can't offer him more than x" or he wanted to sign the player but not enough to match his wage demands? ie was it in his hands? Genuine question.

[JPC82]

he was offered less that what the youth team players on pro contracts like Lloyd and kurt, if we offered him £300p/w he would have been delighted to sign, instead he signs for newcastle on more than 4 times what we offered plus a fat signing on fee, he would have signed here ahead of the toon, he loved it here and was really good mates with Lloyd

[herthab]

Sooooo, if we had offered 300 quid and Newcastle offered 1200 quid, he would've stayed here, cos he's bessie mates with Lloyd?

I'm sorry, but I believe that about as much as I believe Coxy loves it at Swindon, loves the fans and wouldn't want to leave us, even if a premier/championship club comes in for in.

[JPC82]

as everyone is aware Nile has been through some troubled times and he said Swindon felt right, and that he would have better chance of playing 1st team football aswell, but he wasnt going to have the piss taken out of him by the club offering him less that youth team players

[pauld]

Cheers JPC. I can buy that actually - surely even the most deluded of young players must recognise that it's often worth taking the lower pay in the short term to get first team football, show what you can do and then get a really lucrative move a couple of years down the line. ie pretty much what Walcott did. But you didn't answer my original question - was the offer wholly down to Malpas or was that all he was allowed to offer? As you implied in the original post that it was because Malpas didn't rate him, in which case why make him an offer at all?

[JPC82]

malpas wasnt too keen, but dave was, dave was pushing to sign him the whole time, i think some1 on here spoke to dave at a ressie game and dave said how special this kid can be, as far as i know by what ive been told malpas could have offered that amount, money was there, paid on yinka and marshall

[herthab]

malpas wasnt too keen, but dave was, dave was pushing to sign him the whole time, i think some1 on here spoke to dave at a ressie game and dave said how special this kid can be, as far as i know by what ive been told malpas could have offered that amount, money was there, paid on yinka and marshall

It was me and JJ who spoke to Budgie at the Salisbury friendly. And JPC is right. Budgie was practically masturbating about Ranger.................

[pauld]

Fair enough, that answers the question. Cheers JPC

EDIT: hertha: Yuck! No wonder he didn't sign for us then

[DV]

if hes that great and wants to play first team at Swindon we should get him in on loan then!

[Batch]

re: not signing Ranger.

I guess you have to put it against the context of having Corr, Paynter, Cox, Sturrock and Peacock as a pool of strikers and more pressing priorities and only a limited budget to play with. With hindsight it may be the wrong call, but you can sort of see how it happened if not everyone was convinced by him at the time.

[tans]

he'd have probably been shit for us!