Taylor Swift

Goalkeepers Shay Given Steve Harper Tim Krul Fraser Forster Now that Krul is on loan and given not being able to keep himself fit for a significant amount of time stretching back ever since he got injured at West Ham away last season, we need one extra body here. Given's injury doesn't look too serious and Harper's a solid enough backup but one body's still needed. Rightbacks Stephen Carr Geremi Nobby Solano Steven Taylor This a position in need of real strengthening. Carr isn't good enough to be a starter, Geremi's been excellent so far in the middle of the park and we would lose more than gain if we shifted him back, and lastly, Solano seems to be leaving which means this is our weakest position. Leftbacks Jose Enrique Charles N'Zogbia Cacapa Celestine Babayaro Enrique is, from all accounts, a promising talent. The LB position can be looked at in different ways. One, we still need to strengthen because Zoggy and Cacapa are not natural LBs, and of course Baba's hardly ever fit. On the other hand, we've just spent £6m on Enrique and can make do with makeshift LBs. We're not Chelsea, we're hardly going to be challenging on all fronts therefore we can use the versatility of the squad to our advantage. Centerbacks Steven Taylor David Rozehnal Cacapa Peter Ramage Paul Huntington David Edgar Feels like I've forgotten someone but even so, this is a position that should be strengthened. If Rozehnal can keep this up then our first-choice pairing is good enough but if one of the two suffers an injury, we'll have to throw one of the kids in or let the untried Cacapa play. I'm not sure if we'd be better off by signing an experienced back-up ala Andy O'Brien () but my gut says this position isn't as strong as possible. Sam still has some work to do but just looking at the list above compared to the list from last year's and it's clear that we've improved significantly. Edit - Wasn't sure if I should have written this as an article for the front page

Of course he'd have some caps by now if he was playing for two teams who's defense is rock solid. He's not. He's playing for a team with a reputation for not being able to defend well, which is why he hasn't been selected yet even though he's probably been the best of a bad bunch. Still young though, and he'll learn and grow. I do see him eventually becoming an England regular.

Ashley has already put around £200 million of his own money into the club, which is around £200 million more than Shepherd ever did. Do you interpret this as a representing a desire for the club NOT to succeed? You can't really classify the £200m he spent as being money 'put into the club'. How much was the buy-out? £140m? The club hasn't seen a penny of that. Where does the other £60m come from? Our net spending is approximately £15m, and that's what he's put into the club so far, excluding other unknown expenditure like developing the training ground, hiring in new staff etc. Well, even if he only put £1.50 into the club that would be £1.50 more than Shepherd ever put in. As for the difference between £140 million and £200 million, you have perhaps missed the stories about the extent of the debt which has been left behind by Shepherd. £60 million is probably an underestimate most have pegged it at around £80 million. By taking on that debt, Ashley is actually paying for our recent player purchases under Shepherd. That is a good point about the debt, wasn't thinking about it. Anyhow, the point still stands that he hasn't actually put that much money 'into' the club, and it's pretty obvious that in the long-run, he'll be taking money out of the club. That's what billionaire businessmen do to stay as billionaires.

I wonder if we'll revert to 4-4-2 when Owen starts playing. Quite ironic that Souness was planning on playing a 4-3-3 until Shepherd decided to spunk £16m on Owen, which meant we had to change to a 4-4-2 instead, and now we're basically at the same juncture with Big Sam. Will he revert to a 4-4-2 if Owen is on the pitch?

Win the home games, draw the away games. If we can consistently keep this 'form', we'll be top-6 at the end of the season. The key though, as ever, is winning the home games. Hypothetically speaking, if we win all our home games and draw all our away games, we'll end up with 76 points, which is top-4 material. That should be our aim. It will be a tough ask but honestly don't we all expect to win our home games, except the ones against the top 4?? The answer has to be a yes, which means this feat isn't as hard as it seems. If we end up losing the 4 home games to the top-4, we end up with a total of 64 points, which is top-6 material. This can be done!! And that's assuming we get only 19 points in total from 19 away games, something which I would expect Sam's team to better. During SBR's tenure, in one season, we got 32 points from 19 away games. Even Glenn Fucking Roeder and Graeme Souness managed to get us 20 points in their shared season. This can be done! We used to have a fortress at St. James' during SBR's reign. I remember once winning something like 12 or 13 league games in a row at home. We need to rekindle that kind of home form and hopefully with Sam's detailed preparation, we'll be able to win a few games away from home as well. Here's hoping. 8 points from the next 4 games would do.

Ashley has already put around £200 million of his own money into the club, which is around £200 million more than Shepherd ever did. Do you interpret this as a representing a desire for the club NOT to succeed? You can't really classify the £200m he spent as being money 'put into the club'. How much was the buy-out? £140m? The club hasn't seen a penny of that. Where does the other £60m come from? Our net spending is approximately £15m, and that's what he's put into the club so far, excluding other unknown expenditure like developing the training ground, hiring in new staff etc.

Is there a possibility all 'fantasy' talk can be limited to the fantasy thread?

Micah Richards captain! Knew it was a risk worth taking.

Tbf, I can understand why some players would rather prioritize their family's (wife, kids etc.) happiness over football, especially if money is pretty even.

What they're saying about Jenas..

I've just about managed to put together a team without forfeiting a load of points to transfers, but Essien getting injured is simply unacceptable. He needs to stop being such a big girl about his poorly knee and tell Mourinho he's fit to play on Wednesday. Or else. How many points did you waste getting a team out? Did you think about using the wild card? Parky, save your wildcard until gameweek 20+. Not worth using it at the start of the season because you can never figure out which players will come out of nowhere (year before was Gamst Ped, last year was Barry etc.).

A draw would be good for us. The more points both of these teams now will be good. There'll come a point in time when we hit a bad run after this honeymoon phase. Sam's teams' always seem to generally play well throughout the season except for one really really shit patch. It's happened in what? 3 or 4 consecutive seasons now? Last year it was from January onwards, and by then the end was near for him. The season before that was the last 8 or so games where we went on our run and they stuttered and eventually gave away 7th place. We need teams around us to drop some points now while we need maximum points from the easy-ish games eg. Boro away.

He's a dirty bastard who's done a lot wrong in his time but many of the accusations levied against him atm are unjust, unfair and part of the ongoing attempt by the military to discredit him in the attempt that the people will somehow feel better that they're still being run by a military government. Both sides act only to preserve their own interests. Fuck them all. For Thaksin's 'version' on things, this is his website. www.truethaksin.com Most of the things the human rights groups have accused him of have been accused against him for quite a few years already, yet unfortunately no one seemed to give a crap back then.

The media needs to fucking calm down It's gonna raise the expectations of so many people and then the players will get booed at home when we're only 1-0 up against Derby or some shite like that. We cannot make the players feel unconfident when they play at home ffs.

Agreed. You and him (unfortunately) will be fine.

Yes, we could.

I thought it deserved a new thread because I was hoping to discuss a new topic, namely thanking him for the memories. I think it's pretty conclusive that he's going to leave, which is why I did not post the article in this thread. Edit - Those quotes were just meant to accompany the thread. The main point of the new thread was to thank him for the memories. Anyway, thanks Nobby.

I knew it'd be moved Personally thought it deserved a new thread.

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=452901&cc=4716

For £2 million he would be a steal. A good (and obviously underated) player. He's a center-half. Lacks the pace to play RB so he'd be coming here to be a sub for Rozy and Taylor, which is why I thought Cacapa was signed for? We need a RB first and foremost. Then maybe a cover for LB (if Cacapa isn't).

No thanks (to Faye). We surely can do better.

He may play 4-4-2 this game because we don't need to stifle the game like we planned to do at Bolton. More creativity will be needed as we're going to be the team expected to be on the offensive. Edit - James' team is spot on. Would be the starting eleven I'd prefer to see. Maybe Smith and Butt will switch places, and Smith comes on if we need another attacking option.

Dave, on queue as ever, pounces on another prey.

Barton? I see your point, but I think where the difference is is that Diouf's a cunt on the pitch; diving, cheating and spitting. A large proportion of football fans don't care too much about what they don't see on a saturday afternoon(/ saturday morning/evening/sunday morning/friday afternoon etc.) so long as it doesn't hinder the team's progress. Diouf doesn't seem to be a cunt off the field though, so maybe that evens it up? In the end though, what does matter is that they have to contribute on the field, and both of them (Barton and Diouf) do. Wouldn't mind Diouf here at all.

If we actually lose