AyeDubbleYoo

He's a loyal servant who's always done his job when called upon, that's more than most footballers. But he's not a 'legend' or anything like that.

Just out of interest, what makes you think that? I would have though we would be very patient, especially knowing a lot of our players are useless at Premiership level.

I don't think Hughton's a fundamentally negative manager, he just recognised that we needed to be a well-drilled team to get promoted and that he didn't have a lot of flair players at his disposal. Our needs this season are similar, to stay up and consolidate our position so we can add a couple of better players next summer and push on. So I expect our approach to be fairly similar, and I won't complain about that. Just because we're scrapping now, it doesn't mean we always will be. We just have to be patient and recognise our current position. Look how Villa, Fulham, Brimingham etc have improved their standing over a few years.

Lovely goal by Vuckic, excellent technique. Looks massive for 17 as well!

If we hadn't bounced straight back it would have been football (and probably financial) apocalypse TBH. It was the one and only thing we could do to save our medium-term prospects of ever doing anything... any other result would have been disaster.

I disagree, it sounds amazing.

Would be more than happy with that... we'll need to introduce one of them in the cups this season too, ideally.

Not yet. But he will be sold. I can see him going for next to no money nearing the end of the window a la Gudjohnsen. Totally forgot he existed, he used to look class.

Dyer wasn't mediocre, I have no doubt he would have been an England regular had he not had the injury problems, even when he came back from injuries under Roeder iirc, he was different class. Totally agree, if anything he was underrated by the majority of our fans... probably because he was young, rich and flashy.

Give Man City a week or two and you can add them in.

I've always thought Welbeck looked quality, would be very pleased if we got him.

The press seems to think it's 2001.

Did Hughton not drop Smith in the past, or am I making that up?

You could argue that getting more shots in is a good thing though, to know you'd have to look at every individual shot... the stat is meaningless basically.

I do think he was treated pretty badly, and arrived at the club at the worst possible time. His reaction was less than brilliant, but the cliub has to take a large share of the blame.

Yep, agree with all of that unfortunately. I'd love us to be sufficient in producing and bringing through bought in players at a young age. It would be a really good sustainable policy of we could actually be successful with it. Seems like Ashley has scrapped this plan completely though. Based on what?

That's amazing.

He's been a massive twat, yes. From memory though, since he said way back last year that he'd changed and that he'd give his all at Newcastle I don't recall reading a bad word about him. If he played for anybody else he'd be the biggest cunt in football but he plays for us so I'm more inclined to give him a break. I'm not arsed if he's managed not to be a bell end for 12 months. In that time he's hardly played. I'd love to get rid of him tbh. If he gets himself fit and stays out of trouble he could be a good player for us. I'm hopeful, not expectant. Barton is our best midfielder by a mile, assuming he can actually play some games.

It's bollocks anyway, every club has rejected a load of great players.

Linked with Bob Bradley today too. Both potentially brilliant appointments. I'd love to see Bradley in the Premiership. Fulham are quite American anyway.

very, very surprising - he misses so many chances it's untrue, if we were discussing with him i'd be dubious...can't see him flourishing in this league but roy has made worse players than him look good i suppose I agree, he's a brilliant player but he has never, ever, ever been a good finisher. Doesn't have the composure to be prolific anywhere. Could just be paper talk. There are also some fears that the Liverpool board are signing him specifically for the shirt sales. Yeah, but that's what everyone says about every player from China/Japan/Korea. You have to sell a lot of football shirts to make £50,000 a week over 5 years.

Barton and Gosling is so much better than Nolan and Smith it's ridiculous.

I'm trying to ignore/accept it, but it's spoiling more and more games for me now. More so on TV where it gets replayed in slow motion... live games are still OK.

I don't think Dyer's a 'waster' or anything like that. I believe he'd have been a top, top player if he hadn't suffered from so many injuries. He has pace, he can dribble, he gets his head up from time to time.