afar

Average player at Wigan is not a Resonable player for us in my book. This is would the worst signing of the summer if it came off, people could argue the abilities of Clark, Hanley or Murphy but all three fill a certain need and offer value to the squad. McManaman is a nothing player, who is no better than putting Gouff or Perez on the left. The love for Rafa will stop this being a PR disaster but it's still not really a good move from that perspective considering it appears needless, Brom want to get rid of player from their wage bill that offers them little, why do we need to help them out ? Even his current manager is saying he doesn't like him and happy just to get his money back, and his current manager is Tony Pullis !!

Same I must be the only person who couldn't care if he signs or not ? Always thought he was a decent wee player whoen he was at Wigan !.... Also I completely forgot about that tackle to haidara until yesterday ? Saying that it was paddy's day and I was f***ed up on Guinness Wey I just don't care about whether someone wears a poppy or not, even if it is bellend McClean. I still think McManaman is also a bellend. Seemed like a reasonable player a year or so ago... so I could deal with him signing, but ideally we make him publically kiss Haidara's ring(piece?) before he gets to play for us. He's not a reasonable player, he was only an average player at wigan who shone in a couple of games. He's done nothing since he went to Brom, even if it weren't for the tackle I wouldn't take the lad, doesn't offer anything to the team at all.

Think he played against us. Did he register with anyone? I've never heard of him. He did, can't remember Mick Lowes mentioning him too many times. He hasn't scored in 4 games this season if that's any indication of how good he is. You see it quite often that a club will buy a player few have heard of that has been knocking in the goals at lower levels for a ridiculous amount. They've bought two players now in McCormack and this guy, who in theory should give them enough goals to get out of the division. Their big problems though may be at the other end of the pitch, they seem to be shipping a fair few. The new owner though has splashed the cash, got to hand it to him.

He and Gini I believe switched between left and right side during the latter games of the season. He was awesome in our last game against Spuds, and the penalty he "won/cheated" came from a lung busting run down the left. Anyone who thinks a motivated Sissoko wouldn't be an asset for us in this league, is just blinded by pure hatred and talking out of their arse. I would still rather we had 25 - 30 million though and bought a player or two that really wants to be here, but if Sissoko wants his move in January, he will know he's got to rip this division apart between now and then, otherwise the best he can hope for is a relegation battle in the PL with a giant like Palace or West Brom.

Think this is going to be a really good test for us, if we can get a win it'll be huge I think, back to back away wins, when was the last time we did that ? We do have to start picking up more points on our travels, we've got Derby at a good time, this should be a good opportunity.

He's not worth £25m- £35m to us as things stand though. He's training on his own and sitting in the stands on matchday draining around £80k a week from the club. Is he really on 80k ? I would find that hard to believe since when we bought him he wasn't a household name and we had little competition for his sig, I don't recall a new contract that he signed, but I could be wrong ? I would think if he's still on that original one, it'll be no more than half that amount.

That's a strange one, the first few games of last season, I thought they had a really good player there, the only one in their side that looked to have any class. But he just disappeared, second successive manager that hasn't had any faith in him.

They need to do something, clear they are not even competitive at this level. Think there may be a management change there before we get to the January window.

I dunno which I would hate us signing more, as guess at least McManaman (Can we just call him McMan, tying his full name is getting on my nerves ) is young enough to develop some.

Last need filled in my view if he joins, Rafa's done a good job identifying where we were lacking and filling the gaps. If tiote goes we will need another CM though I think, but doubt Tiote goes. Think in January we'll probably want a Wayne Routledge type signing, but not much else assuming the squad holds together.

That thread is mind numbing, the amount of sheer lack of understanding of basic principles and just blind hatred on the lines of "common sense goes out of the window, need to make a point that the mags suck and invite all my educated mates to wade in with the same utter bile". FFS, there is rivalry and all, but you need to sometimes take those blinkers off and look at things objectively, we've reduced our scored, pulled in more than we sold. No evidence exists but it's a pretty good guess to assume the wage bill has been pruned. We've got a squad of players more than capable of bringing us up, all who want to be here and we still have plenty of potential, there's been some short term buys, like Gamez, Murphy and Diame but on the whole the players we've bought are still at a good age. Once we add the LW to the squad maybe even one or two more, we'll have had a darn good transfer window, but they just can't take those red and white blinkers off for one minute. The funny thing is they slate our approach yet they have had a terrible window so far, so bad even their own manager admits they are likely in a relegation fight, in August !!

Outside of current inmates, McManaman is the player I would least like to see us buy, I think you can forgive a lot of players, some had the misfortune of being born in that shithole down the road, others may have said the odd bad thing about the club but for me that tackle and lack of punishment, Martinez's comments afterwards and the general lack of acceptance of guilt from anyone connected with the club have made me hate McManaman more than any other player in the modern game, and I wish nothing but bad look to Wigan and Martinez since. Bad PR move from the club, Rafa may not be aware of the history here though, hope it's just paper talk bullshit.

Didn't realise how much business we have done and incomings well behind outgoings so we could expect more, from NUFC.com: Transfer tally: Outbound (15): Sylvain Marveaux, Gabriel Obertan, Steven Taylor, Remy Cabella, Andros Townsend, Fabricio Coloccini, Papiss Cisse, Gini Wijnaldum, Florian Thauvin, Siem De Jong, Kevin Mbabu, Henri Saivet, Daryl Janmaat, Tim Krul, Gael Bigirimana. Inbound (10): Matz Sels, Matt Ritchie, Dwight Gayle, Jesus Gamez, Isaac Hayden, Grant Hanley, Ciaran Clark, Mohamed Diame, DeAndre Yedlin, Daryl Murphy.

Difficult to pick 3 to go down this year, could be a wide open thing this year. It's nice in a sense not to be sitting nervously through it this year.

Good. Need more of this. Don't agree at all, no matter how awful a player is booing their introduction is not healthy for all parties, does not send the right message to other players. I honestly don't have too many issues with his current role at the club which seems to be a player we play occasionally, he's not a guaranteed starter anymore and we should be thankful to Rafa for that. If some stupid club come in for him before the window closes, we naturally should snap their hands off but we would be woefully short in CM, unless we can get Tiote playing again.

It's Hughton FFS, get it right

No, just fucking stupid

Somehow set pieces aren't classed as chances ? Also they created one real chance of any note, Hughton also saying in public that the sending off was harsh, if he's not in private tearing into the lad for stupidity then he's still the same "Mr Nice Guy" manager who will do well when his players are helping him out, but not the type of man you need at a club that wants to go places.

WTF is Houghton on about with this comment ? "Newcastle were very efficient but it feels like a missed opportunity. They scored from two set pieces and although they hit the bar, we had the better chances." http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/37138687

We needed a left back, Rafa goes out and gets one, what is this tranfer policy, completely foreign to this club. The only area I think we are lacking now is left wing, if we pick up one of those before Wednesday, we'll have had a pretty darn good window in the end.

Considering the fee we paid and the age of the lad, I don't need anymore convincing that this has been a great signing, I had my early doubts about the players he's brought in and the jury is still out on a few of them, but Hayden, Ritchie, Gayle and Diame, look like they could be excellent recruits.

They were lucky not to be 2 or 3 down before they hit the bar (the same bar Gouff hit before that), we bossed the game and the sending off was one of the few things the ref got right out there. When you are on a yellow already, you don't go in like that, simply stupid.

No need for us to blink here, if he goes for 20 million plus great, if not, if he wants a move in January he'll have to tear the championship apart between now and then.

Important win, did enough, slowly building up as the season goes by, think Rafa will be happy with that. We knocked the ball around really well at times.

I don't know if you have the same commentatir in the Uk as we have over here, but he keeps pronouncing Knockaert with a hard"K", is that correct ?