What your saying makes sense and is very worrying - we should be tying Eastmond down for at least 2 years or getting shut now.

Whats also worrying is that a player who has been nurtured and developed by the Saints since he was 13 has finally broken into the first team only to then seemingly hold the club to ransom because all the cards are now stacked in his favour.

I know the career of an RL player is only short and they have to make money when they can but is there any sense in moving to RU at his age with no idea what position he is going to play and if he will succeed at all. To be honest, better players seemingly more suited to kick and clap have tried and failed.

Doesnt exactly fill you with confidence. Has Martin Offiah stamped all over it IMO.

The guy is a class 1 tool.

I can understand McManus being less than pleased about some of the stuff coming out of Eastmond and Offiah's lips. There are few things in sport more dislikeable than someone playing one club off against another. In any sane world you'd tell such people to go and phuck themsleves. But Planet Sport isn't any sane world. A precident has already been set at the club with Cunningham. If I had a penny for every time I heard him playing Saints off against Wigan during the first five years of his career I'd have more money than him. In the end we paid up. We had to.

Offiah is merely a symptom - not the problem. You don't hire an agent with the media profile of Martin Offiah unless you've got plans to move up in the world.

Its not. I happen to know thats the figure on the balance sheet.

True to a large extent.. But whatever the truth is with regards to whether our offer was an insult or the greatest offer ever made - probably somewhere in the middle - we should not have let SL go without tying Arnold down.

To end up relying on a SC who is apparently unhappy with our valuation of what he is worth is not good for the club and appears to be poor judgement.

Call me a cynic, but I think there is some books balancing / saving money going on here. Have you seen the latest accounts?

I'm definitely enjoying this "Let's put TWO rookies in the playmaking positions" tomfoolery - NOT!

Can you imagine a top tier Premiership club starting a season with two rookies in the midfield - by choice? Can you imagine a top cricket side CHOOSING to enter a season with two kids - one as strike bowler, the other - all rounder? No. The reason you don't see this is because it is PHUCKING MADNESS!!!

Ah now I see what is going on!!

From Sporting Life headline[sizeOFFIAH

The wages from Long, Gilmour and Cayless one would imagine would have been used on Soliola, Fozzard, Moore and improved contracts for the younger squad players ie - Wheeler, Lomax, Arnold etc.

<prayingfx> We may even have a suprise addition to come<prayingfx>

Again, its only assumption but i'd imagine that out of the youngsters, Eastmond would have been given the lions share of the available funds. Regardless of the figure, perspective needs to be used. Kyle has over 12 months on his contract to run, therefore to be offered a new contract at an early stage shows the clubs intent to retain his services.

He is going to be a class act if he continues his form,however, he has not yet shown he can perform week in week out and i don't think he yet holds the ace card he/Offiah are holding out on.