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Wow that video on Dailymotion. He's easily our best player. It's scary how good he looks, and that was his fucking first game with us! Honestly, on talent alone, he wouldn't look out of place playing for Man Utd. His touch, control and technique are all top quality. And he's got pace to burn as well.

That's nice. Looks like we have a good chance to start the season well and get the ball rolling before that killer November. April should also be a good month. Hopefully that's when we make our charge for 4th place

taxfree in that thread is classic negative taxfree.

And I don't think you can take Modric's assist tallies too seriously when he had Pavlyuchenko, Defoe and Crouch finishing off the chances that he created. Spurs honestly need a real top quality striker, one that will cost shitloads and be a statement signing to the likes of Bale, Modric and VdV.

Henderson went for close to £20m, man. And Phil Jones just went for £20m too. Bent went for £24m, Milner went for £28m. Modric will go for £40m+, if he goes. I think Spurs have a good chance of keeping him, even if it's for a Ronaldo-style year where everyone knows he's going to leave next summer. I don't like Spurs but I don't like the biggest teams being able to bully non-CL teams into giving them their best players. We could easily be in Spurs' position in a year or two's time with Tiote, Ben Arfa and Cabaye. They'll need to buy some new strikers, though, and quickly too. If they can spend £30m on two strikers, they could probably convince Modric to give them two more years playing this formation: Sandro Modric Lennon VdV Bale new top quality ST They would be able to challenge for the CL.

If Modric does leave, he'll go for £40m+. The benchmark was set by the Carroll and Henderson deals. There's no way he goes less than Carroll's, and he probably goes for close to £50m if Spurs are able to hold out.

I'm not sure. He was a free agent who must have known what Liverpool were going to offer him. I'm not sure why all the reports had him set for Liverpool if both parties knew that they wouldn't be able to agree on a deal. I reckon it was some last-minute stuff. Maybe Liverpool dropped the years or put in some injury-related clauses in the contract that made him back out and contact us (I presume he knew what we would offer since we've had a good 6 months to tell him). We're probably paying him a decent amount if he backed out of a deal with Liverpool. Liverpool aren't exactly the type of team to hold back on wages, especially not when next season is so crucial for them.

Need another striker or can Erding play alone up front when Ba's not available? If we're planning on playing with one striker then having Ba and Erdinc as the preferred two means having someone like Ameobi as the second sub is all right. We're not looking to challenge for a CL place. Yet.

Three more players then. If we don't get Barnetta, I reckon it's N'Zogbia. Him, Erdinc and Matuidi would make this the best transfer window for a good 10 years, in my opinion (assuming no one leaves or is properly replaced if they do).

So you were more optimistic when we had Barton, Nolan and Best as guaranteed starters then? Right.

That because you're a proper morbid c***? Exactly. I can't believe how someone can be so negative. I bet taxfree thought we'd never get Marveaux after Liverpool went for him, and the same with Ba and Everton. For whatever reason, we seem to be able to sign some decent/highly-rated players this window and we're not going for cast-offs from big clubs who are moving only for the money. The three guys we've signed so far are at the perfect age, yet to peak and all have mentioned how they're looking forward to the challenge. This is not Duff signing for us because Chelsea don't want him. We've signed three players who wanted to move on from their respective clubs and chose to move to us. I think that says a lot and I am quite optimistic that we can finish this window by signing another winger, a striker and a central midfielder - and replace anyone who leaves us - which will leave us with a starting eleven that can beat the likes of Liverpool and Spurs on our day. We don't have the squad to compete for 5th or 6th, but if we're lucky with injuries then it's not out of reach, at all. Be so negative? It's not about that is it. Reason given before. I bet you're wrong. Hell, I can prove you're wrong; http://www.newcastle-online.org/nufcforum/index.php/topic,76776.msg3017552.html#msg3017552 Regardless, the way this window has gone (so far) should be making all of us more optimistic about the future of the club, yet every other post of yours is you complaining.

Yep. And we get him for £7m because Wigan don't want to lose him for nothing in the next window. I think we'll get him for sure if Liverpool get Mata/Downing.

Bellamy and Robert was, according to many reports, not easy to handle, but they were both great on the pitch. I wouldn't give a shit if HBA and Marveaux were hard to handle off it if they are anywhere near as effective as Bellamy and Robert were on it. Bellamy was the epitome of a team player, not sure of the comparison there. Robert fair enough, and yes that's good evidence that if they're talented enough it doesn't really matter. But that was just one player, a luxury. The comment from Wallace is that putting too many of these types in the team might have a negative effect. As I say, I think it's a valid concern. I'm not sure where you've heard that HBA is not a team player. He's hard to handle off the pitch, which is why I compared him to Bellamy. From the reports that came out about Ben Arfa, he took too many players on and doesn't release the ball quick enough. That might be confidence, that might be arrogance, but it doesn't reflect anything about his workrate when we're defending. I don't think you can make a judgment on that until we actually see him have a proper run of games. In general I think we can afford one or two lazier players who don't always track back when defending as long as we're a good team who can keep the ball. If we get pinned back and our wingers don't track the overlapping full-backs then we'll usually get fucked, but if we're dominating possession and only getting attacked on the counter by the weaker teams then it'd be rare for the opposition FBs to attack as well, which is why it won't matter that much if Marveaux/HBA are a bit lazy to track back.

That because you're a proper morbid cunt? Exactly. I can't believe how someone can be so negative. I bet taxfree thought we'd never get Marveaux after Liverpool went for him, and the same with Ba and Everton. For whatever reason, we seem to be able to sign some decent/highly-rated players this window and we're not going for cast-offs from big clubs who are moving only for the money. The three guys we've signed so far are at the perfect age, yet to peak and all have mentioned how they're looking forward to the challenge. This is not Duff signing for us because Chelsea don't want him. We've signed three players who wanted to move on from their respective clubs and chose to move to us. I think that says a lot and I am quite optimistic that we can finish this window by signing another winger, a striker and a central midfielder - and replace anyone who leaves us - which will leave us with a starting eleven that can beat the likes of Liverpool and Spurs on our day. We don't have the squad to compete for 5th or 6th, but if we're lucky with injuries then it's not out of reach, at all.

Bellamy and Robert was, according to many reports, not easy to handle, but they were both great on the pitch. I wouldn't give a shit if HBA and Marveaux were hard to handle off it if they are anywhere near as effective as Bellamy and Robert were on it.

Only the French go missing when the going gets tough. That's why the English are so good at penalties

Blackpool game was a fluke but I see where you're coming from. Think pace is more of importance than creativity at the moment and out of those mentioned by the OP from what I know only HBA and Cabaye are creative. Certainly Tiote isn't and neither is Ba from what I've seen. The players we're getting and being linked with would certainly suggest we'll be a SBR team - lite next season. Quick on the counter and fairly direct without being longball. Yep. Two, three passes gets someone with pace to burn out into the open field, racing through the midfield and ripping teams apart We had that with Robert, Bellamy and Dyer. If we can replicate that we Marveaux, Erdinc, Ben Arfa and the other winger/Jonas, then we'll be fucking genius on the counter next year.

Toulalan's still quite young (27). I know he's got white hair and all so he looks old, but wiki has him listed as 27 and I remember the commentators mentioning that he was in his mid 20s during the World Cup.

I'm actually optimistic that this won't limit our ability to sign other players. If we were planning on signing N'Zogbia, one more striker and a central midfielder, signing someone like Marveaux on a free transfer should mean, at the most, that we might have to spend a little bit less on the three combined. What I mean to say is that our original plan was probably a winger, a striker and a midfielder. But now that we've got the winger in very cheaply, we could afford another winger and still go for a striker and a midfielder, only this time the combined fee of the three would be a bit less than if we hadn't signed Marveaux.

Why not? He's been out for nearly a year. It didn't take Valencia this long to recover, it didn't take a whole host of players who broke their legs this long to recover. Even the really bad breaks, like Eduardo and Smith, didn't keep them out for a year. I realise there was a setback and he had to go for a second, albeit minor, procedure, but that has been a good 7 months ago. He should be running fully by now without any pain and looking to build up the strength in his muscles before starting pre-season proper. In the best of worlds, he'd come in as the fittest player in preseason after doing a lot of strength and endurance work this summer.

This. I'm not saying we're doing poor business in this tranfer window. We're buying actually good players for almost nothing. Sadly, by splashing virtually no cash, it seems to me that it's same old Mike Ashley. So basically, since we have a lot of money, we have to splash it? Despite Ba being a good player and Marveaux seemingly a good player with a decent reputation? No point in splashing cash for the sake of it. It's not like these players are shit and just squad fillers. Ashley does a good job in getting players in on the cheap and he gets slated, would you rather we did a Liverpool and splash 20 mill on someone like Henderson? Exactly. Maybe a player will become available near the end of the window who will actually require money to buy, and we may be saving the cash for that kind of transfer. If we can get more highly-rated freebies in, rather than old crocks like Joe Cole, then it can only be a good thing. Remember we got Jonas through a similar fashion and no one would have complained if we spent £5-7m on him.

Who's our three established left sided midfielders? Marveaux, from all the reports, is someone who can play on the right as well as on the left. Ben Arfa is not a left-winger. He's a classic #10, drifting across all positions. Jonas is our only natural left-winger, and ironically he's right-footed. And no one seems to be sure of Ferguson's exact position. Pardew has said it's LB, but then why would you want to sign Taylor if you have Ferguson as back up. Whatever is the case, we could certainly use N'Zogbia if we're planning to play 4-3-3/4-2-3-1.

I'm obviously leaning towards the latter of bobbydazzla's two views, especially with our newer players looking like they've got a lot of pace about them whereas our older players, like Nolan, Smith and Barton, can be marked out of the game because they aren't pacy.

Benzema would look nicely at the top of our front five.

Better than Liverpool's, imo. At least so far, anyway, assuming N'Zogbia signs.