Rich

The stuff about him buggering off in a couple of years was the most interesting bit of it, I thought.

http://home.skysports.com/list.aspx?hlid=474727&CPID=8&clid=4&lid=&title=Czech+eyes+Premier+education At least the bloke's honest, I suppose. Nice to see that he's fully aware of his apparent major weakness and that he intends to improve on it - especially after quite a few people on here mentioned his size for a centre-half.

Agree with this as well. Let's hope we bring Bridge along with him too!

goes for every other candidate with the exception of Given Which has sort of been my point from the first reply in this thread, funnily enough!

Was Alberto not making a Geremi Kyle joke? Very happy with this as well. Is it safe to start waving goodbye to the Irish Troll yet? To Sunderland please, Stevie.

Get Ramage out on loan along with the other "young" lads, barring the obvious one, and hopefully get shot of Carr and Babayaro for good. I've voted for Carr personally because for some reason I hate the odious little gobshite. My scapegoat list for next season will be rapidly diminished if all of that happens after Bramble has already gone!

It'll be a bit of a surprise if he's still here next season mate, let alone as club captain! His first-team status is far from determined as well.

Exactly. As for it not mattering if the captain is an automatic starter or not Mick, howay man, it'd be canny ridiculous to have a club captain who plays a "bit part" role in the first eleven although I know there are a few teams who've done it in the past. Just doesn't make sense to me though. The captain should be the figurehead/mainstay of the team and should ideally be there in every situation that the team finds itself in. It wouldn't be as much use having our club captain on the bench/in the stands, even if he was better at the job whilst on the pitch. Given, barring last year, has been almost ever-present for us and is one of the longest serving players on the books - as well as being a model pro and having English as his first language. Obviously he's held back a bit by his position and his apparent lack of communication skills, but in the dressing room you'd imagine he's one of - if not the most - respected blokes at the club. Short-term he's the best option for me. As much as we need to, I'm not sure if you can buy "captains" - especially not good ones.

solano??? Nowhere near being an automatic starter, especially with the likes of Geremi/Beye rumoured to be coming and Milner/Dyer already being here.

Surely has to be Given this season? Who else is an automatic starter with that much experience?

That might have the reverse effect, it certainly did on the Chelsea players who have come here and on Nicky Butt too. Every single one has gone dramatically downhill. Barca often dominate games with 60% possession and teams line up against them to defend and try and nick a goal on the counter. At Newcastle he won't always be recieving passes in neat little triangles and in plenty of space, he'll be expected to pull his finger out and lead the defence or the midfield, people will look up to him for inspiration, he'll be right in the spotlight which he wasn't at Barca. I don't even think he speaks English, it's a big ask. He'll probably be walking into the team in January in freezing conditions and a lot will be expected of him, big name player, Brazil international etc. He could rise to the occasion or he could be a big flop. The key fact you've missed in regards to the first line can be summed up by saying Shepherd, Souness and Roeder. The second part of your post makes perfect sense and is something I wholeheartedly agree with. It'd be a hell of a gamble.

I have to say I think Allardyce has adopted a fairly sensible line on this one, at least until he gets more bodies through the door and has his backroom staff in place as well. High expectations saw the end of Bobby Robson and we all know how the story goes after that and I would love it if we were able to give Allardyce the time of day to sort things out from top-to-bottom before we start criticising him for some media comments that are probably nowt more than PR from his side of things. I can see what people are saying and I completely agree that finishing 12th with an extra point to last season will not represent much forward motion at all! But howay lads, put the brains in gear and realise that Sam is saying what he has to in order to make sure the dunce element don't get daft too quickly. Do you really think he'd be satisfied with this, really? Not a fucking chance - the bloke has a record for over-achievement. He'd be making a noose for his own neck if he came out and said "we're going for the top 4 this season, top 6 at the least!" and then we suffered another horrendous injury crisis or if we just missed out on it - we shouldn't forget that we're not the only team with new money and a new manager in place as well. It would be nice to see another barnstorming Keegan-esque era where there's money to burn and where we make our big intentions perfectly clear (although that fell flat on it's face last time around as well) but we need to start being more realistic, especially with the fact that the club is being gutted and changed from top-to-bottom this season as well. Like everyone I suppose, my expectations in my heart would be a European spot for next season at the very least - so either a cup final appearance or a top seven finish in the Premiership and I'd be fairly satisfied with how he's done for his first year in charge. I know it's easy to get carried away, especially when improvements seem to happening all around the club and when it looks like we'll have more money than we've had for years (but will we be as well-placed financially as we were under Keegan/Robson now that so many billionaires are involved?) but I'm battling to keep my feet on the ground and I hope others can as well. For me, I'd be amazed if we don't see major strides next season after suffering over 2 years of utter dross under Souness and Roeder and I hope that this alone will be enough to keep people on his side even if we don't do as brilliantly as we perhaps could. If the injuries are kept down, there are no major off-field incidents like there have been, if the squad are playing for the shirt and if we start winning more away from home as well then I'll be delighted. Obviously SJP is our bread and butter and last season was utterly atrocious there, I'm like Yorkie in thinking that 10 wins from 19 home games should be the bare minimum for a club of our stature when you consider some of the shite still in this league. People shouldn't forget that next season's PL has the potential to be the most competitive it's ever been because of the moolah flying around, over half the teams in the league have new-ish owners and money behind them and we're still playing catch-up with a lot of them in regards to our set-up behind the scenes in regards to fitness, diets, tactics, facilities, etc. While we've got a lot of the key ingredients in place to take-off already and while a part of me thinks we'll do great next term, my head keeps telling me that due to Shepherd, Roeder and Souness and the lack of foundation/planning within the club before this summer we'll still not be able to reach our full on-pitch potential for at least another full year. I keep saying it, but we'll wait and see. If Allardyce manages a "proper" assault on the top-four next season while improving everything else I've mentioned, this place will be buzzing going into next season and then we can start thinking big again. For now we have to support the new blokes in charge, the manager and his staff and all of the players and just hope that things "click" immediately for us. Let's see what he can do with something like 2 months of time before the season kicks off first of all and then if the improvements can be seen, let's start getting excited about what he can do with even more time/facilities/money/equipment behind him with his first season under his belt. (Sorry about the length of that, you can tell I don't get much chance to post these days!) Summary for the lazy sods: we can do nowt but support him at the minute, especially when he's simply trying to lower the expectations of the fans who don't know any better (who can be dangerous to a manager's job - the mindless majority and all that) and we should remember that he's going to have had about 2 months of time to fix the gash caused by Shepherd, Souness and Roeder prior to his arrival. While we do have a head-start on a lot of teams in regards to playing staff, money, ground-size and all that we're still playing catch-up when it comes to our approach to all things scouting/tactical/technological, etc. As Jon said earlier, the bloke has an awful lot to change in an awfully short amount of time.

In fairness, when they have the likes of Ronaldinho, Eto'o, Henry, Messi, Deco, Xavi, Puyol, etc. I think Barca fans would consider the vast, vast majority of our first-team squad "mediocre" as well! Not saying what you've just posted there isn't right, but I'd imagine the Nou Camp isn't the easiest place in the world to be merely "good", if you see what I'm saying. The bloke hasn't been great whenever I've seen him (which has actually been a fair bit over the last few seasons due to how much Barca are on Sky/ITV) but I'd imagine he might still look a cut above when he's taken out of a team full of world-class players like at Barcelona/Brazil and put into a team like ours - which is light-years from either of those two at the moment. Just because he doesn't stand-out in two of the biggest teams in the history of fussball doesn't mean he's an atrocious player, surely? The things that are worrying are his injuries, the obvious lack of involvement until almost 2008 and the fact he might see us as nothing more than a cash cow. It's yet another one of those ones where we'll have to trust Sam's judgement, but a lot of the signs do point towards it being a flop, I can't argue with that. Let's not write the bloke off before he's even coming/comes though.

I have to say that I like the sound of this and the other posts about him. Having a 6ft+ natural full-back with that much apparent pedigree/experience makes me very optimistic indeed, especially when he can cover CB as well if/when necessary and when he's been captain at a club the size of Marseille. Let's hope that "Whatever" is right again about this and that he's here before the pre-season friendlies kick-off. I know how much people love it and so if people search his name on YouTube there are some bangin' "videos" about him Also, anyone know if he speaks the English?

he is as good as gone If you read about 20 words after that I do mention something along those lines already.

I'm looking forward to seeing how he does under Allardyce and a part of me would be sad to see him go this summer, but I certainly wouldn't mind it too much. It's a bit of a catch-22 with KD because you just know he'd go on to another club and win a fucking trophy before we do. That would sting.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/c/celtic/6249262.stm Not technically correct, like, BBC says we're credited with interest and that there's 2 bids from unnamed PL clubs.

Also, I'd be massively surprised if we sign two fullbacks slower than Solano, Carr, Babayaro and Huntington/Ramage/Edgar and another centre-half that's as slow as Craig Moore is/was. When you look at things that way, aren't we actually improving this particular department? As others have said, there's still N'Zogbia, Owen, Martins, Milner, Emre, Duff and Dyer who are hardly short of "pace" - to varying degrees of course - and of course it's already been noted that some of these might be away/are injured, etc. Nowt to worry about just yet!

Are we actually getting any slower when you consider that so far we've signed Viduka, Barton and Rozehnal to replace Sibierski, Parker and Bramble? I think we've got quicker players (or at least as quick) there than what we previously had, although admittedly not by much. Let's see who actually stays/goes from here before we start worrying about this, there are currently plenty of speed merchants left at the club - we've got one of the fastest squads in the league on paper - I'd actually prefer it if we played a more technical way than the "push and run" we've employed since Robson left as well. As for Ballack being quick, I've seen JCB's move quicker than he did every time I saw him last term!

I'm almost as excited about these three blokes coming is as I am about the players we've signed so far... very good news and obviously I hope it works out.

I hope Alan Oliver is going to get some public apologies if this turns out to be true, the poor bloke.

The 3-5-2 thing was mentioned weeks ago, you crazy foo'.

I think all the I's have been dotted and the T's have been crossed going off the reports, but we might be reserving the official announcement until things at the club are a little bit more settled. Think things have been complicated by the takeover stock-market wise (which is usually where we'd first announce any transfer) and obviously with the big board shake-up as well. Perhaps it was Dougy Hall's job to tell the market about new signings? He could have signed his contract and now it's just the matter of releasing the funds to PSG/informing the remaining shareholders - it must be far more complicated than usual though, we might not even need to make an announcement at the moment.

he should if he thinks they are right I'd trust Allardyce to spend £50m better than all of our previous managers since Keegan. I second this. It's nice to have no major reasons to doubt a manager after the last two clowns that were put in charge. I don't think Big Sam has put a foot wrong so far and Viduka and Barton were two really good pieces of business if you ask me, it's good to see that Mort has come out and backed him in the press as well.

Journal seem to think we've been granted permission to make an offer to him, but I'm not entirely sure if we can trust the Journal after the number of times they've been wrong about similar things. Time is running out before this Austrian training camp kicks off, mind, so I would expect some big movement between now and the weekend on the transfer front. Things MUST have been affected money-wise this week due to the boardroom business, and that is surely the reason why Rozehnal's transfer has been so protracted? Obviously there's a lot of changes going on at the very top of the club and it's had a knock-on effect on the transfer business. Now Ashley's hit 90% and he's got the boardroom cleared we should start seeing some more forward motion. As I've said elsewhere, if Beye means the end of Stephen Carr and helps to push Ramage out on loan somewhere then I'll be delighted with it.