Cronky

A very decent buy at £5m, but I'm inclined to believe Ryder on this one.

Or just simply a re-hash of an old story.

Agree with all of that, ridiculous rule but they know for a fact they are getting a yellow if they do it. Would be really pissed off if one of ours missed an important game through suspension because of it. Goal celebrations are a matter of convention, as much as anything. Speaking as an old fogey, before a certain point in time, nobody removed their shirt. Now it seems to be a compulsion that they struggle to resist. FFS keep your shirts on. Stripping off makes you look a bit daft, and dafter still when everyone knows you'll get booked for it.

If Arsenal land Suarez, they will be serious contenders for the title, and he knows it. He is tailor made for them, and it will be £40m well spent.

McCarthy is a different player to Tiote, a CM rather than a DM I think if we do go for him, it should be as a replacement for Tiote, not Cabaye. I don't particularly like the term defensive midfielder, because a player in that position has to be able to use the ball reasonably well, otherwise any possession gained can get wasted, or the build-up too slow. He's a player who will actually see a lot of the ball. It looks to me that technically McCarthy is better than Tiote, and his defending also looks exceptionally good. But a) he does look best suited to that holding position in midfield, and b) if we're seriously prepared to pay over £10m, surely there are better options?

I think McCarthy is decent enough at what he does, but that article said Wigan were looking for £20m. For that sort of money, you'd want a player with a better touch on the ball than McCarthy has got IMO. His passing looks quite conservative as well. I'd prefer him to Tiote though.

Maybe I've not seen him on a good day, but I've yet to spot what's special about McCarthy. A very good tackler, and a decent enough anchor man in midfield, but no more than that. Shaun Maloney was the Wigan player that caught the eye. I know he's 30, but we could get a good couple of seasons out of him whilst the youngsters develop.

Ngggggh...... That central midfield still doesn't look right.

Watch them play. Nobody remembers Didier at the front post? Shearer did it as well, I'm not sure it should be used as a stick to beat Cisse with though. Cisse is a bit of a cowardy custard when it comes to aerial contests.

My concern is that cutting inside seems to be his only option at the moment. He really cannot hit a cross with his left foot.

He still doesn't look very comfortable on the left. He's very one-footed and it's his right. It affects his ability to clear the ball and particularly his ability to put in a cross at the right time.

Sounds like Lyon may now be prepared to consider 8m plus top-ups based on appearances etc

The rest of the squad would probably be sold anyway if they won promotion, or at least the ones who would whinge about him coming back, because more than likely they'd be the weaker squad members. Also don't players often whinge about lack of ambition when clubs don't invest in the squad (okay, just us) so it would make sense they would want the better players back surely? Apparently a major problem for QPR last season was a split between the players on low wages who won promotion, and the ones who Fernandes then brought in on huge wages. Unless the second group had turned out to be well-motivated superstars, there was bound to be a problem. The situation could easily repeat itself if they loan and then re-claim some of those high earners. And generally it's not a great way of motivating your existing players if they know from past experience that if they do well, they'll effectively be replaced. I think this type of situation is a more common dilemma for clubs and managers than is widely acknowledged. It's a bit like the story of the Chairman whose team has won a trophy, who pops his head round the dressing room door and says, 'Well done lads. We can now afford to get some decent players'.

The opposition would be rubbing their hands at the prospect of free access to our back four. 50% of the job of the midfield is to defend, and of the three in there, two can't defend at all and the other one seems more comfortable going forward. They'd also get very little help from the three in front of them. There's a good article in the Wish I Was A Geordie website about how the problem with our midfield is as much the balance as the individual players. We don't seem to have it at the moment.

It looks like Kinnear and Pardew were also miles apart in their valuations.

Fernandes also seemed to want to lend some players out with a view to retrieving them when they won promotion. I'm sure the rest of their squad will be thrilled about that.

Most of my opinions seem to be unpopular. Here's a new one - David Pleat is a good pundit.

I don't believe you.

Gouffran's a good all-round striker. I think his reputation probably suffers a bit because there's no one aspect of his game that really stands out. But he's pretty good at making something from any situation that he finds himself in. Good team player.

Tony Fernandes ‏@tonyfernandes 19h I predict 4 more players will leave Qpr. 2 more will leave on Loan next week as we want to keep them for future. But more to go. Lets see. So the team will be working their cods off to get promoted, only to watch the big names come back from loan to take their places in the Premiership. I wonder if Fernandes has learned anything. A team has to be united.

I don't think he's that bad, but we've already got Debuchy, Anita and Santon for that position. It's a pointless signing.

Unfortunately along with Anita he's the only option. Then we should get another option. Tiote is holding the team back, in terms of our ability to build attacks.

I'm trying to find some optimism from this in that we could wake up tomorrow with a new player, but it's more terrifying than anything. I suspect that quote refers to Bent.

Now that's what I call ambition.

The one chink of hope in that depressing perfomance was Vukcic, who looked confident and energetic. We need someone who can open things up down the middle and he might provide that.