The College Dropout

Yep I wasn't keen on either Downing or Bent but it is looking like we may get nobody.

He's in the first team squad for Manchester United. And if Moyes likes him as much as Fergie did, he'll get too many games to be loaned out. But not enough to really kick on.

A team with Bent & Berba up top for 25-30 games won't get relegated.

They are an old team so I don't think they can afford to press heavily away from home. Have they added any legs in midfield?

One of Fulham's biggest problems last year was when Ruiz was injured they had nobody else with a little guile except Berba. Ruiz was inconsistent too. Now they've loosened the burden/reliance on Berbatov/Ruiz. There's another player there for goals and another for creativity. They now have serious options. All out attack and play all of them, conservatively away only play 2.. or anything in the middle. The biggest thing in a relegation scrap is quality in the final third, and they have it in abundance now. They might flirt with relegation but they really have too much fire power not to get 25-35 points at home.

People still dislike Danny Welbeck? He's not a finisher at all. But he's good in the air, can hold it up, great link play, rarely wastes a pass and fro England is a 1 in 3 man. Good player.

Every. Single. Year. Spurs have had the better players for at least the last two seasons. At least the season before last RVP was the best player between them and maybe even the league. But last season, Bale was the RVP figure and Arsenal still finished above them.

They are all massively average bar maybe Carroll Separately, yes. Together they'll do a good job. To 12th or 13th yeah.... They were a few points off 8th last year with some bad injuries. They'll basically be nowhere near relegation which is something I'm envious of. They were 5 points ahead of us and I'm fairly comfortable assuming our injuries were worse. Who do you think will finish higher this year? Us. As Mole has said, there is a lot of romanticism of these players. I wouldn't be remotely excited of us signing Nolan, Carroll or Barton and even less excited about Allardyce managing us. Less romanticism than our current squad of players imo. Pardew is copping the blame for some of the worst individual performances I've ever seen in our shirt. Yet this group of awful players have got us to a league position Barton, Nolan or Carroll have never achieved and probably won't. http://i.imgur.com/gWOfiXl.png Hardly compares to what we have now. Even worse when you consider we want a few of the remaining players nowhere near the team. So what is it you want, for us to go back and sign Nolan? All I've said is I think a few West Ham players will do a good job I based that on the fact that they're buying players to make a team instead of just buying ( ) French players who become available. You're bang on with your last few posts. People forget quickly that the basis of our success involved Simpson, Saylor/Willo, Colo, Raylor, Jonas.. Obertan played a ton too. Granted HBA, Ba and Cisse played a lot.

From what i've seen so far, we aren't any stronger anywhere.

Wow, quite a claim that! I agree they might need to be a bit more disciplined at times, but I can't agree that a team with Santon/Debuchy can possibly be "a lot worse" than a team with Simpson/Raylor. Both are bang average players at best. So is this - "I don't think our squad is worse than the one that finished fifth. Ba is a big miss but Cisse benefits from his leaving and we also have Remy if he doesn't go down. Our midfield and defence is better now." I haven't seen anything form last season that proves this point. Just because the Ba and Cisse partnership didn't work it doesn't mean that Cisse (or the team) is playing any better now. Yep, it's my opinion that Cisse benefits from Ba leaving. Cisse wasn't playing that great, but he was doing much better than when he was on the right wing! Obviously if you just use last season as an example, then everyone is s***. Cisse, when Ba was around, only played minimal amount of minutes out on the wing. Something like 3 games

Nando's and clothes

Aye, Debuchy is also a much better attacking outlet compared to Simpson also. Simpson, and Ryan Taylor (other than the few games he went mental) were both very good at keeping defensive shape though which is something we excelled in for large parts of that season, because that's what kind of manager Pardew is. You're not going to get the same rigid defensive structure with the players we have now. So although the players we have now are far more talented, as a team they look a lot worse. Agree with this. Best was such a useful outlet. Not superb in the air or anything but a handy target to hit. Then you had a pretty sturdy back 5. I think that's key for any Pardew team. A settled backline he can drill and drill and someone up top to help relieve the pressure we invite.

Its not Bent vs Shola Its Bent vs someone better If this was under Fat Freddy I would agree. He would panic and bring a big name in, over-priced for £10m. That was the FS way. MA and co.? I really suspect if we don't sign Gomis, we won't sign another forward. In fact, I know it.

He did say "poor execution". At least you can read. But they've gone back and this time, signed some useful players. They'll keep pushing.

It's NT level that gets the big team advantage. At U21 it's always been more spread.

Liverpool always show ambition. Often poor execution. But I'm jealous of the ambition.

Do agree and i do think we overpaid( or were willing to do so) but i still think he's someone who would have been a good player for us. None the less as i have said before i'm very apathetic about the whole striker situation since we signed Remy, would much rather have a winger in instead of a striker tbh. We've seen with Brazil/Dortmund/Bayern how useful a big lad can be. A good big lad, not bloody Shola.

FWIW this season he'll go on a hot streak. 10 in 10 type thing. Then hopefully another 6-7 throughout the rest of the season.

16-20 for my productivity in the office. It needs to be 16-20.

This guy..

I haven't seen any of Hughes but from what I hear, he's in that Bale/Walcott bracket of - it's not if, it's when. He may not make that top bracket but at worst he'll be a decent Premeirship player/fringes of the England squad - AT LEAST.

There's been a lot of flops but the spine of Everton's success previously, came through the Championship. Lescott, Jagielka (okay had a decent season in the Prem), Cahill. It's worth a risk once in awhile.

We certainly lack the players for an aerial power game, but we have a decent squad if we chose to pass the ball on the deck more with real movement. But Pardew is never going to be the man to instill that movement IMO. The squad and the coaching staff are totally mis-matched. In general, power/aerial ability is a problem. It's a problem for Barcelona and Barcelona we are not.

Not started this yet. Will build my team around a Ivanovic-Baines-Walcott-Bale core.

Same thing applies to any good finisher, but the difference is Cisse can also score some goals without help (unlike Bent) and is 1 and a half years younger. Bent's pace and strength compared to Cisse makes it easier to create chances for him. Swings and roundabouts imo.