Ronaldo

He absolutely terrible.

I think if you look at the 3 games in which dropped points at home this season, there's been an abundance of chances created and poor finishing has let us down, Carroll being particularly terrible in 2 of those 3 games. Right now, to get out of this league we're a natural goalscorer away from absolute certainty, imo. The creative midfielder(s) will have to appear somewhere on the summer shopping list.

Best not sign Beckford if he's considered an adequate replacement. He'd get a few goals to be fair but fuckin hell What exactly are you expecting from Beckford? A classy playmaker who also scores 25 a season?

Surely would have been yesterday. At which point the roads up were absolutely fine btw.

He was terrible at Sheff Utd, i'd stay well away.

Not quite 25 times since I first heard it on saturday night.

What does GG think of him? He's always looked at least mid-championship standard to me.

I almost agree with KD here, both players are ten times better than Sol Campbell when you get them on the pitch.

Looks alright to me. This postponing games nonsense is doing my head in.

They were happy to get O'Driscoll this morning. One of em on SNN said Donny are the 'Arsenal of the championship, which cannot be a bad thing'. Aye, because Arsenal are 15th.

Khiz struggled in the championship. I don't see the same being the case of Shittu.

Better than Khiz.

Just look at his face in that picture.

Fatso is currently placed 13th, but I agree with your point.

Bellamy missed two clear cut chances then took the hardest one. Also did brilliantly for Dyer's goal, What a player he was for us.

After a tough first half we absolutely brilliant that day, great game. Remember a bloke in the east stand getting rushed out on a stretcher after suffering a heart attack.

Fucking hell.

So you agree that 'every attack comes through him, he is constantly getting the ball into feet' doesn't neccessarily equate to a target man? As I said, we have different definitions of the term.

6th imo, as they finished in the previous 2 seasons. They've had no real success yet.

He is a target man in the sense that near enough every attack comes through him, he is constantly getting the ball into feet and constantly the target at corners and free kicks. This describes Kaka perfectly when he was at Milan. Our definitions of the term are different.

So you're defining a target man as someone who get's the ball mainly in the air. An old-fashioned English centre forward. Therein lies the problem. Old Fasihioned. It is not current. That sort of football is not succesful anymore which is why that sort of player has been phased out. You need to update your idea of what a target man is otherwise, as I suspect you want, this arguement will go round and round. Football has changed and old principals are no longer valid, thusly your position is not valid as the position of target man you refer to is no longer part of the game. When I said 'target men are a thing of the past' I was referring to my understanding of the definition. ie the conventional idea of a striker principally used as a target for long, high balls. This type of player, imo is extinct at the top levels of the game. And this is what I primarily see Carroll as, which is why I made the assertion in this thread in the first place.

It was the 1-0 against France in 02. The Ivory Coast weren't even in the tournament, if confusing his nationality isn't bad enough.

Just because he's complete, doesn't make him a target man. Most of his good work in the last 4 seasons has occured when he gets the ball to his feet.