midds

There is also the flip side, where we sign a new LB before Enrique goes.... Liverpool then know we have two 'first choice' left backs... one of which desperately wants away, and they start throwing lower offers in for JE. Its just that fine balancing act of trying to get the best price for our player, but also trying not to pay over the odds for the next one. Liverpool know how it works because they've got football people running their club whereas we're run by people who have little experience. In January Liverpool had a similar situation with trying to offload Torres and buy Carroll. They made it clear they weren't prepared to sell Torres until they signed Carroll. They played it perfectly, getting exactly what they wanted whereas we were left short. They've just taken Enrique and Lo and behold we've been left short again. Anyone spotting any patterns here? At least we've not sold him on deadline day I suppose.... I'm not disagreeing with your main point about managing the timing of transfers, but I'm really not convinced that paying £35m for Carroll could be called a good end result for Liverpool. More to do with the fact they got rid of the player they needed to move on and replaced him with who they wanted. The 50m from Chelsea paid for Carroll as has already been well documented. It wad more the process of replacing him rather than the sums of money involved.

There is also the flip side, where we sign a new LB before Enrique goes.... Liverpool then know we have two 'first choice' left backs... one of which desperately wants away, and they start throwing lower offers in for JE. Its just that fine balancing act of trying to get the best price for our player, but also trying not to pay over the odds for the next one. Liverpool know how it works because they've got football people running their club whereas we're run by people who have little experience. In January Liverpool had a similar situation with trying to offload Torres and buy Carroll. They made it clear they weren't prepared to sell Torres until they signed Carroll. They played it perfectly, getting exactly what they wanted whereas we were left short. They've just taken Enrique and Lo and behold we've been left short again. Anyone spotting any patterns here? At least we've not sold him on deadline day I suppose....

Honestly don't think he would sign an extension if we offered him one. I think he would prefer to wait and see how things pan out this season.

This is what happens when you sell before you replace. The selling club cotton on to the fact we're getting a bit desperate, they raise his price, make things difficult safe in the knowledge that the window is closing. The more they procrastinate the better chance they have of making a lot of money. The longer it goes on the more PSV can push it knowing they hold all of the cards. This situation is entirely of our own making and completely preventable.

Song will get 3 games out, nailed on. It's violent conduct.

QPR won't get out of the bottom 4 or 5 all season.

Worth remembering that Arsenal had the best away record in the league last season. To keep a clean sheet and take a point is a good start to the season and something to build on.

Fair comment tbh.

I'm genuinely baffled by his popularity. Odious man. Thrives on the oxygen of publicity. I'd just starve him of oxygen. He's a cunt.

Genuinely expected Barton to get a red for grabbing Gervinho like that.

He'll need a few months to get up to speed with our league but looks like a player. Arsenal today followed by the derby is a bit of a baptism of fire for him and we don't need him blowing out of his arse after 70 minutes next week. That said we won't be chasing the ball as much as Sunderland don't keep it as well as Arsenal do.

I certainly think we'll see more of the ball next week than we did today. Arsenal keep it really well and we never really got into the game today. Sunderland will lose possession much more and we will create more chances than today. Doesn't really count for much if we've not got the ability to put a few of them away though...

All things considered Ryan Taylor did much better than I thought he would. By his own dreadful standards he played reasonably well today.

Hope I never see Ba and Shola up top together again. The inability to hold the ball up in the first half from these 2 was ridiculous. Just kept coming back at us and we were really lucky to go in level. Shola will never ever win me round. I've seen far too much of him in a black and white shirt and the fact he's leading the line at the start of his 11th season here is a sad indictment of the state of the squad and that's 100% down to the management and lack of investment.

Was impressed with his pace and movement today. Was busy enough to latch onto things and make the odd thing happen to rattle them a little bit. Certainly got more potential than I initially thought.

Needs to calm himself down this week as he's going to get it big time next Saturday. They'll deliberately target him and try to get a reaction out of him. We need the choirboy back for one afternoon. We can't afford to go down to 10 men.

1-1 won't be far away. As per. I'd take a point like.

What a load of rubbish. I don't know a single person who claims the derby is 'just a game'. I can only guess you are not from the North East and don't have a clue what it means, ridiculous post. Show me one single Sunderland fan who claims the 5-1 didn't hurt and I will show you a liar, of course it hurt, only a idiot would argue otherwise, any derby defeat hurts, whichever team you support. It was more a pisstake of your position/posts tbh. You mention the 9-1 quickly enough without mentioning the fact we won the league that season. When you finish above us the individual games don't count but when you win them, even though it's over 100 years ago, you still try to milk it. Edit: not going to reply to your replying post btw.

Mega-chomp.

Lose the derby = not important, just a game, who finished higher?? Win the derby = biggest thing in the world, nothing else matters.

A more competitive higher profile league? In that case so can Swansea. I want it to be true, I really do, but I just can't see it. I can believe we've made the bid but can't see him in black and white. Swansea aren't reportedly bidding for him and neither are Man U, Man city, Liverpool for that matter but we are. If he wants Premier league football then we at the moment offer his only route here. He has the choice to stick with Lyon or accept our offer if he wants it bad enough. Well we'll see soon enough.

It helps to have a short memory though, I suppose they did 'win' the last one. "broke black and white hearts". Apparently.

N'Gog is worth £-2M then? I think he's dreadful tbh. Id have be asking for someone else in part ex if I'd been Coyle. Just not N'Gog. N'Gog's Premier League scoring record is actually better than Sturridge's was before his loan with us. 12 games later and one is worth about £20M. £4M seems like it might be worth this risk. Maybe, maybe not. I'd rather not take the risk on him either way. Could be just what you need? None of my business tbph.

There's no worse feeling than losing a derby you were convinced you were going to win.

A more competitive higher profile league? In that case so can Swansea. I want it to be true, I really do, but I just can't see it. I can believe we've made the bid but can't see him in black and white.