Why the Net has the advantage in the ‘Undies world’
- Shopping blogger Emma Iannarilli
Bring on the action
Wednesday 18th November 2009, 8:03AM GMT.
Don’t know about you but Saturday’s game against Bristol City can’t come around quick enough, writes Albion’s Sporting Star columnist Neil Whitehouse.
This international break has been one too many for me with England’s fairly pointless friendly against Brazil not providing a sufficient alternative ‘footie fix’.
At one stage, there were so many withdrawals from the squad; I was wondering whether Karl Henry was going to get a call up shout although I understand Ronnie Wallwork was still in front of him in the pecking order if Fabio Capello needed to send for another replacement midfield maestro!
Hopefully, the one real benefit to come out of the game is that we can count on the support of the Brazilian Football Association when it comes to backing the England 2018 World Cup bid. As we gear up for this summer’s finals, it will be good to see a sprinkling of Baggies players representing their countries in South Africa.
I am sure Chris Wood is pinching himself over his meteoric rise from Albion trainee to now being part of the New Zealand squad that has sealed their place. Hopefully, Robert Koren’s Slovenia are still in with a shout of turning around the one goal deficit in tonight’s return against Russia.
But there is no doubt who is the Albion man of the moment right now and that’s Gonzalo Jara.
Not content with demonstrating that he has taken to English football like a duck to water and excelling in a number of positions, he is now scoring for his country as well to enhance his growing reputation.
Whatever we think of the player recruitment methodology at the Albion, it already looks to have paid dividends on this occasion with Chris Brunt calling the £1.4m fee ‘a steal’.
In today’s inflated transfer market, it does look to be a shrewd piece of business as we appear to have signed a player that is comfortable in several positions and that may prove to be very useful as the games come thick and fast either side of Christmas. Brunty’s description of Gonzalo got me thinking about other players that we have signed in the recent past that could be classed as ‘steals’.
Top of my list would have to be Enzo Maresca when we consider he was snapped up from Cagliari for nothing in the summer of 1998 and then sold to Juventus in January 2000 for £4.3m – that’s some appreciation in value!
Others that spring to mind for me would be Don Goodman who cost us just £50 000 and went on to score 60 goals in four years before his £900 000 move to Sunderland. Another player that we had great value from was Chris Whyte.
He was struggling to find a club in England when Big Ron brought him back from America in 1988. He turned out to be a class act in his two seasons with us prior to his departure to Leeds for £400 000. I suppose we would have to add Lee Hughes into the same bracket – although his £200 000 fee may have seemed a lot at the time for a non-league player, it was worth every penny when we received the £5m fee from Coventry.
I am sure there are plenty of others that could be added to the same category if we think about it but at the moment, I just hope Gonzalo stays with us for a long time and fulfils the great promise he has shown so far.
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I totally agree Neil! Can’t wait for the Bristol City game, it’s not been the same <3 Gonzalo Jara has been a revelation for us in various positions and hopefully we can keep hold of him and Dorrans for the forseeable future. Come on you Baggies for the weekend (L)
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That Ronnie wallwork comment made me laugh out loud – not a good thing at work…..
As for steals – Curtis Davies made us 7 million after just 2 seasons (one and a half of which he was injured), However £150k for Dorrens looks to be the buy of the decade so far – and he is just getting better and better.
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My facebook status this week mentioned the “feast” of football this week on Sky – from Huddersfield v Wycombe, Southampton v Brighton, Coleraine v Glenavon, and Wales v Northern Ireland.
Really glad I pay God-knows how much for that lot in HD!!!
Back to “steals”:
Agree with Maresca – he’s never been the same since he left us. I saw him playing for Sevilla recently (although I understand he’s now in Greece).
I remember singing “Get your chequebooks out” many years back for Paul “The Postman” Williams who we had on loan and we could have bought for about 100k – but we didn’t. He’d have been a bargain based on his performances to that date.
Andy Hunt? 100 grand again and a hatrick against Brighton (?) on his debut – in the last quarter of an hour if memory serves? (Although I may have rose-tinted memories of that one!!).
Super Bob. Can’t remember how much he cost – £400k? – but that is the definition of a steal!!
But we’ve also been on the receiving end once or twice! And much as I hate to admit it, Steve B*ll and Andy Thomson for a combined 80 grand??? We was robbed!!!
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Big Cyrille Regis. £5,000 from Hayes, 237 appearances, 82 goals. Enough said.
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£300k we paid Bristol City for Super Bob!! Quality!!
Of the current squad you have to say Koren on a free and Mulumbu for £150k would also have to be in there? You’d be looking for a couple of million each MINIMUM if we sold them now? Dorrans, agreed, could be worth anything in 18 months if he continues to develop? Chris Woods signed on schoolboy forms? Even Miller for £900k (if he’s ever the player he looked capable of becoming again!?!?) could still fetch a fee in the millions?
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SuperMaths
Andy Hunt used to write a regular web blog, there’s a big section on that Brighton game (it was his home debut, he’d come on as a sub at Bradford the week before- and scored). He says he’d not been keeping fit as Keegan had banished him to the reserves at Newcastle and it was his first competitive 90 minutes for months.
He reckons he was treading water after about 30 minutes, absolutely knackered, and some Albion fans were getting on his back. He admits he was absolutely terrible and doesn’t know how he scored a hatrick!! Went on to be a great signing though. That Brighton game may also have been the birth of the boing boing.
That 2001/02 promotion-winning side were all bargains for the fact they got us up, McInnes, Clement, Big Dave, AJ, Gilchrist, Siggy, Dobie……
People will probably cite Valero as a worst buy, I suppose it never worked out, but has anybody seen his this season? Guilleme Balague described him the other week as Europe’s ‘next great midfielder’……..
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I know he’s not exactly flavour of the month, but we paid £175k for Paul Robinson and he was a fantastic (if gobby) servant to the club.
Neil Clement cost us £120k and we’ve had nothing but great service from that bloke!!
Looking at financial returns, we have Kamara (4.5m profit); Davies (6m profit); Koumas (3m profit); McShane (2.5m profit); Kuszack (thought to be around 3.5m profit).
We all know who managed to broker those deals and it’s when you look at things like that, it should make us all grateful for JP’s business accumen in keeping our club free of debt and the need for a sugar daddy to bail them out.
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7. Disagree about Clement, a good championship player looked very uncomfortable in the prem and has cost us alot of money in wages due to his injuries.
Makes me laugh, half of you on here absolutely slate JP and blamed him when Mowbray wasted the money he was given. Two faced people.
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Another bargain – Richard Sneekes…. can’t remember what we paid but we didn’t pay much in those days for anyone, and the bloke did as much as gary megson to keep us up in that year before we started to move forward.
He scored a bag full of really importatnt goals and gave performances that inspired the players around him. He was a player who paved the way for the success we have enjoyed over the last few years.
Andy Hunt – who remembers THAT gaol against Derby, last home game of the season 2001/2.. ended 3-3 if i remember right.
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Ahhh, Hughes and Maresca, I loved those deals, I remember being so proud that my minnow club (at the time) had sold a player to Juventus! His actually doing well for himself too, playing for a pretty big name in Italy still, not sure who though.
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8 – You’re entitled to your opinion on Neil Clement and fair enough, but I think Neil Clement is a legend and in the Great Escape season, he and Gaardsoe formed a fantastic partnership at the back that was the rock that the run in was built upon.
Neil Clement has been a fantastic servant to WBA in my opinion.
On your 2nd point, there’s only me who has praised JP in these comments that I can see, and I am a strong believer in what he does for WBA is in the best interests of the Albion. If you ask TRBH on his opinion on JP, you’ll find that we share the same opinion on his chairmanship on the whole.
If that makes me two faced, then fair enough, and you obviously have a different take on what two faced means than I do!!
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Oh ned – did you really fall for a Shadrag shenannigan ???
Only a cretin like him would disrespect neil clement like that…. just more scum from the pond he calls life !!
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Ned if you did not slate Peace during last season I apologise. If my memory serves me correctly you and Happybaggie did have a pop at him saying he should of released more funds etc? I wouldnt want to be Charlton, Bradford, leeds etc
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shadrag – no I didn’t.
Did you say that despite`chelsea missing lampard, drogba, and about 6 other first teamers that wolves should play 5-4-1 against them ??
Actually its on the wolves page so don’t bother replying.
p.s – hows Morgan’s £30 million going ???
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12 – I thought it might be, but I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt for now…..time will tell!!
13 – No, sorry. I’m firmly in the JP camp. Apology accepted I suppose. You can buy me a pint in the Vine on Saturday to make up for it, and that will prove either way if you’re Shadrag, as Happy suggests, or an actual Albion fan!
Everyone’s a winner!! :-)
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6. Warren,
Not sure who Guilleme Balague is, but after a comment like that perhaps he had something to do with persuading Watford to pay £3m for Ellington, don’t know what we paid for him (may even have taken a loss!) but that £3m really was a steal!!
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Most expensive flop David mills from boro,big Ron broke british transfer fee signing him not sure what happened to him,aye boing boing
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11 Ned.
Just come back on after one of those b****y nuisance breaks when I have to work. Only to glad to vouch for you as a consistant JP supporter along with Happy, Warren, Cyril and a number of others That I could name. The anti JP brigade are like Halley’s Comet, you can predict when they will make an appearance IE every time we lose a game ( the anti JP brigade that is, not Halley’s Comet, it would be too weird if that appeared whenever we lost a game.)
On the Shadrag thing. I can sympathise with you being caught out. He now posts that many times under that many preudonyms that it’s hard to believe he could be that obsessed with us. Although boingboing is one of his regular names, I think there used to be a genuine poster that used this.
I’ve just looked at the Kris Boyd thread and he is now using Wolves names IE NorthBankWolf and I think that the last post from Winslow Wolf was Shadrag, as he failed to Start with a capital letter and it was very childish, both hallmarks of Shadrag, as well as being littered with mistakes, Winslow’s posts are usually error free.
Anyway, look on the bright side. It keeps him off the streets and more importantly, keeps him away from the financial markets which seem to be making a recovery without him.
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18 – Cheers Bully, much appreciated. If you’re in the Vine on Saturday, I’ll gladly buy you that pint instead!
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1 Ned.
I’ll see if I can get there in time, what time will you be in there? It will have to be an OJ though, I’m on a course of penicillin (for a chest infection not an STD.) Which Vine is it and will you be wearing a red carnation?
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