stozo

It's a pretty sad state of affairs when Cahill, Parker, Barry, Walcott and Zamora are all starting for England. Not doubting they are all decent players but none of them exactly set the world on fire.

FFS

Best £2m > Carroll £35m

I thought he was great today. His passing is beautiful.

Would like to see starts for Gosling, Marveux and Sammy Amoebi. I also fear we will see an outing for Perch.

He's never going to be a 20-goal a season striker but he works hard and scores goals. Considering we paid £2m for him he is an absolute bargain.

http://d.yimg.com/i/ng/sp/p5/20110820/14/3777575269.jpg http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/11/17/article-0-027BBC23000005DC-133_468x340.jpg

This thread asks two totally separate questions - Rate our summer transfer window and was the £35m well reinvested. I'd rate us highly on how well we have done in the summer transfer window but low on how well £35m was reinvested (because it clearly wasn't). Cabaye, Ba, Marveaux, Obertan and Santon all look to be decent players who have their best years ahead of them. I don't disagree with signing any of them and I think they all have the potentially to be very good players for us. On the outgoings front I was happy that we got rid of Nolan, especially considering we replaced him with someone who is a better player in my opinion. Enrique had to be sold due to his contract situation. The only departure I was disappointed by was Barton and that was only because we failed to get a transfer fee for him. He again wasn't going to sign a new contract so I would have supported selling him for £3/4m. The big disappointment is obviously the lack of a striker. It would have been a great window had we got one of Gameiro, Gervinho, Erdinc or Maiga. The arrival of Ba still means we are stronger up front than at the end of last season but a top striker would have really allowed us to push on this season and target a top 8 finish. Overall I'd give our summer transfer window a 6.5/10. It would have been an 8 had we got a good striker.

That'll be why we had a kid that's never played a senior game on the bench at the weekend then. Then why loan out Forster? Also, Harper is only injured for a short while. This guy is unlikely to get near the starting 11. He's what, 3rd or 4th choice? We don't even have ONE LB. Forster needs to be loaned at because he needs to develop which he is not going to do as our third choice keeper. While it is unlikely this guy will ever play for us we need to be prepared for a potential situation where for whatever reason our two starting keepers are unavailable. I'd much rather have this guy on loan for the season than risk having to potentially throw Soderberg into goal when he is not ready.

Sounds to me like we're going to let this go right down to the wire. My guess is we are hoping to get Cissokho and are hoping Lyon cave on the price at the last minute and if they don't we will get Pieters instead as he is cheaper.

Thought he had some bright moments. Offers us pace down the right wing and seems to have more end product than Routledge did. Still aspects of his game for him to improve on but I'm relatively happy with his performance today.

Disappointed that Best and Lovenkrands are starting. Would rather we'd started with Ba and Sa. Ameobi. Nonetheless have to hope they do the business for us. Here's hoping for a big performance from the midfield.

I thought he was brilliant last night. His passing at times was great to watch.

Press Association are reporting in talks with QPR as well.

This sounds a really interesting idea - http://www.nextgenseries.com/. Hope we compete in it in coming years.

Some talk in the Kadar thread he has gone/is going on loan to Heerenveen.

To be fair to Shola he is not a non-entity. He is not someone who should be startig every week but he is a decent back-up to have around the squad.

Missed his penalty in the shootout according to the BBC. Orient still went on to win.

Would be great if we could get Pieters signed. Puts us in a much stronger position with the Enrique situation if we have his replacement already here.

Source?

Not ideal if he is leaving but this is entirely of his own doing. You simply can't publically criticise the way the club is run.

With our recent injury luck my heart sank when I logged in and saw this thread at the top of the page. Good to see it was just him playing well.

Apparently we are only going to be allowed 5 subs but Kansas City are trying to get that changed. Seems bonkers that we have agreed to having some of our players play 90 mins in their second preseason game.

Mirror say this morning that Liverpool and Arsenal are going to move for Enrique and that we have put in a new £7m bid for Erdinc and will offer him the No.9 shirt.

This exactly. Although I very much expect both the team and formation may well change before the start of the season.