KaKa

Milner and Zoggy would inject a bit of zip off the bench.

Please read very carefully and give careful consideration! Take a ride with me for a moment and imagine that Oliver is telling the truth ... -We have been linked with Gudjohnsen for ages and all along we were told Martins was about to sign for Arsenal. What if Martins was being touted and the plan was to bring in Eidur and sell Martins and in the process get another £5 million in. However, Arsenal pull out and so we cannot tie up the Eidur deal as we still have Martins. We end up pissed off! -All of a sudden West Ham show up and are interested in Eidur too, which pisses us off proper! We know they also want Dyer and although they are willing to stump up the cash we tell them to f*** off because they are interfering in our deal for Eidur. We tell them that they cannot sign Dyer unless they back off of Eidur. We therefore make enquiries for Smith incase they don't back off, and they enquire about Smith too as they imagine Smith and Dyer is better than Eidur alone with no Dyer. In the end we are hoping to end up with Eidur while they get Smith and Dyer. We hope to end up with Eidur with the money made from selling Dyer. -On the other hand we are still looking for a buyer for Martins. Harry was desperate for Martins last year and so we give him a call. We know he is still looking for a number 9 and we say to him he can have ours for the £10 million we paid for him as long as he throws in Sol Campbell. We imagine he will so does Sol who says Portsmouth will not be his last club. We hope to end up with Campbell and £10 million. -With the £10 million extra we now have we purchase a defensive midfielder, lets say Papa Bouba Diop, which allows Geremi and Barton to push forward and we get another couple of defenders,probably the Sevilla left-back and the AZ Alkamaar right-back. With all this we end up with the following new players ... Steinarson, Dragutinovic, Papa Bouba Diop, Sol Campbell and Gudhohnsen. We do not actually spend any money as this is funded by Dyer and Oba leaving. The question is, would you be happy?

Agreed 100 %. Heinze isn't that fast at LB either, but would have been welcomed by most on here. Besides, I think Sam is looking for a LB who has more of a defensive mindset anyway.

Should we not first of all suppose that he locates his cylinders, before we get carried away by imagining him firing on them? Ah ha! I knew someone would have a pop at Luque, which is why I also included the possibility of a Martins, Viduka & Milner combination firing on all cylinders also. So your comment is moot pal!

You do know that we've only got two friendlies left, yeah? Yeah your right, but I think Sam said he might organise some behind closed doors games as well. I was referring to those along with the remaining friendlies.

Here's another thing ... let's just suppose that Luque plays in the rest of the friendlies and continues firing on all cylinders and even getting better. Maybe we even try the 4-3-3 with Martins, Viduka and Luque in some of the remaining friendlies and it looks great and we do well with it. Or indeed Martins, Viduka and Milner as the front three. What happens then if Owen is suddenly fit for the first game having not been a part of any of our pre-season games. Do we automatically put him straight into the team ahead of those who have been playing well and showing form in the pre-season? Ahead of the players who might have shown that they have adjusted well to the 4-3-3 should we get a chance to work on it? Owen better play in at least a couple of our remaining friendlies or I just don't see any reason why he should be straight back into the team ahead of those who have been playing well.

Lady Owen's got another owie ... boo hoo! What a freakin' crock. Of course we need him to play in the pre-seson so Sam can sort out his tactics and see how various things work. For example everyone thought Geremi was brought in to play right-back but after the last couple of pre-season games we can clearly see that this should never be the case. He's way too good for that. With Sam confirming that he prefers the 4-3-3 last night, we should be working on this during pre-season, but because Owen has been hurt we haven't had a chance to see how Martins and Owen might fit into this formation. I can't tell you how much more I am coming to appreciate players like Milner and Martins, they might not be as talented as Owen but they are always ready to play and can be relied upon. Milner has just played in a very competitive tournament this summer and has only had a short break, but look at the form he is in already! Owen really needs to get himself together. Maybe they need to look at his diet or something ... he's as brittle as Mr. Glass.

I have a feeling Papa Bouba Diop is our fall back option if the Smith deal doesn't come off, so I'm not worried either way as I am a fan of Diop.

Great stuff. Nice one Tom.

Nice one Kaka. All we need now is Kewell to Spurs. mackems.gif They can dream of Kallstrom and Boateng all they want, but Kewell is their destiny. He's as big a fraud as they are. Match made in Heaven. Soon, very soon ...

3m is what ManC offered last week. Nowhere does it say they want what you're saying. He's in the last year of his contract too, so forget about the £8million Euros talk.

Ahem ... I started a thread on this guy and the MODS shut it down I demand an apology! Ivica Dragutinovic (Sevilla left-back) « Reply #238 on: July 23, 2007, 11:13:50 PM » -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Don't be surprised if he comes in as our left-back. He was linked with Man City today but I will be surprised if Sam isn't snooping around him as well. Very similar to Heinze. Tough left-back who can also play as a centre-back also. The only thing is that he is 31, but he was still effective and impressive for Sevilla last season. Contract is up next summer so he won't cost a lot of money either. If Sam doesn't have an eye on him I will be dissapointed. Make it happen Sammy http://www.newcastle-online.com/nufcforum/index.php?topic=42696.msg929484;topicseen#msg929484

I think he could be good as an attacking midfielder in a three man midfield. However, when played as a midfielder at Man U they tried to use him as a holding midfielder in the Roy Keane mould which was silly. He has a good motor and is a good tidy passer of the ball and has a decent shot on him. He should do well as an attacking MF for us, should we play him there.

Amen. This summer is turning out to be a lot less enjoyable than we all anticipated. Freakin' papers!

This is the downside of the board not coming out and talking about what exactly is going on. Sam makes a few comments about them needing to step it up and all hell breaks out in the media! They live for this kind of crap they really do. The club really does need to address all this nonsense or it will start unsettling people.

Awful article. Still waiting on Kevin Boateng who the Independent claimed would be our first signing!

Wiki says he has... Wiki sucks! By the way dude ... I admire your patience, but I think you have to accept that some people would rather be negative about things and the more you try to convince them there is no real reason to be yet, the more they negative they get! One main thing has stood out to me regarding our pursuit of defenders. Sam says he wanted prem experienced defenders. In my opinion this has been the focus and I think we have been spending too much of our time trying to secure players who have experience in our league, which is usually very complicated as teams are likely to be less likely to want to give up good players to their rivals. They are no doubt being over priced as you only have to see what has been going on in the transfer market. In the odd occassion where they are likely to be reasonably priced, for example with defenders the top clubs don't want i.s. Man U's heinze and Silvestre they have decided not to come. I really think this has been the min problem and now we are only beginning to look at our foreign options. I think it is very likely that if we are going to be buying defenders from abroad, Sam will look for players that are not expensive but have the potential to be very good for us. Similar to the deal to bring Rozehnal in. There are absolutely no guarantees with foreign defenders so at this moment in time we cannot afford to spend £10 million on a defender from abroad I don't think. Especially, as we have no stability in the position at the moment. Lads just coolrelax it will all be fine. I am expecting at least three defenders in by this time next week, and then we will tie up another 3 players in different areas of the squad and it's showtime.

So ... does anyone have any tangible evidence that Cacapa has signed for Al-Rayyan? Or will he be in black and white by Friday?

Bad news for Borough. I haven't heard a squeak about Huth either, I take it he is still crocked as well? Those two would be some partnership if they were both fit but will that ever be the case. If they don't have those two playing for an extended period I think they will go down.

http://home.skysports.com/list.aspx?hlid=459344&plid=51007&clid=30&cpid=8 Was also a target for Sam while at Bolton it appears, just like Roz was.

May be some truth in this. According to Sky Sports he has one year left on his contract and was being eyed up by Sam for Bolton way back in April. Apparently would only cost about £1 million. His agent claims he along with Abidal were the best left-backs in France last season.

It appears Smith is indeed Dyers replacement. Geremi, Smith and Barton in a midfield three maybe? When all are fit? Defensively I'm hoping we sign Cacapa this week.

This. That right winger (can't remember who it was) was running rings around Huntington all first half, shows how much in dire need we are of a LB. Geremi was a class above the rest in CM. He was barking orders and telling everybody where to go and what to do and starting moves, some canny passes etc. They posed no real threat, they were quite poor, even against our youngsters in the 2nd half Darkhorse for captain?

Owen really is pathetic.

Speak for yourself. Probably agree on Baines though. It's true though. N'Zogbia and Baines supplying from the left, Milner and Solano supplying from the right - with Geremi playing the playmaker role, through balls, and Joey Barton as the box to box workhorse. All forward to Owen and Viduka? That's potentially top 4 material from an attacking point of view. It just is. Could be exaggerating. Definitely Top 6 though. Is this the same Michael Owen who cannot play more than one game before being out for two months? Or did we sign another striker by the name of Michael Owen?