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This will be the second time I won't be watching the match this season since I'll be at a college basketball game. The last time was opening day at Bolton so hopefully that's a good omen.

To be fair just about everybody here has been anticipating it since 12:01am on February 1st.

ah heck, just buy him if he's willing to come here. There are various factors that could make him successful or not successful, but from what I've seen of him I think the upside is too huge to ignore because he could potentially be a world-beater. Worth 12m for that alone. Sometimes you gotta gamble.

With Krul, Forster, and Sodeberg already around seems pointless to get another since only one of them can be starting for the reserves at a time.

I'm sorry, who? Next year's best Premiership defender... after Shittu. Well, hopefully we'll still be around to see him in action firsthand.

I'm sorry, who?

My best mate's a Liverpool fan. Needless to say, we're both having wonderfully exciting years.

Well, if Parker was in Bellamy would have to be in too since they were basically bad transfers for the same reasons. Bellers costed more though Actually Parker and Bellamy should probably both be in there over Rozhenal for the sheer amount of money they cost, but I've edited this list enough already so blah.

Steve Hunt really, honestly isn't much of an improvment (if at all) over our current wingers. And we'd have to pay through the nose for him since he's just signed a new contract. Giles Barnes once Derby inevitably gets relegated is a good shout though since he'd come cheaper.

The defence is certainly better considering that the likes of Ramage, Huntington, Babayaro aren't starting regularly anymore. Forwards marginally better, the problem being we've been forced into Smith/Owen due to Oba being unavailable for a while and Viduka being permacrocked. Still, we were playing with Sibierski/Martins for most of last year so it's hardly a step back. I suppose we miss Dyer a bit. On the wings we're about the same, it's central midfield where we've completely collapsed mostly due to losing Parker, Emre permacrocked, Butt turning into s***, and all of Geremi/Smith/Barton being complete failures. My God, it sometimes amazes me how we didn't get relegated last year. We were regularly starting a defender who barely gets a game in League 1 this year, rarely had actual fullbacks, and Peter f****** Ramage was the heart of our defence. Stunning.

"attainable" - Santa Cruz??? Agbonlahor? Carrick?? Bentley??? Are you quite insane? Do you know what potentially means? Do you think we're honestly in a position whereby a display of ambition wouldn't be able to attract players from Blackburn Rovers? We need to aim as high as we can this summer. If we get knocked back with most of our bids then so be it. But I for one would rather we went for the best we could possibly get. Santa Cruz and Samba would both be attainable targets that would slot right into our first XI. Other alternatives to Santa Cruz, Cavenaghi at Bordeaux is showing good form and is a fantastic finisher, tho perhaps better as a number 9. Guerrero from Hamburg is another i have spotted from watching setanta, very strong, excellent in the air and skilful on the ball. I'm not certain that any Blackburn player is attainable if Hughes doesn't want them to be. Last summer Spurs were offering what I thought was silly money for MGP but Hughes said he wouldn't sell and he didn't. I rate Santa Cruz highly but I don't think Hughes would sell him, no matter what. if the player wants the move it'll probably happen, i don't think RSC would have too many qualms about using blackburn as a stepping stone. an alternative to Samba who no-one seems to have mentioned could be Meite from Bolton who looked class last season, would surely leave and probably wouldn't command a big fee either. I don't think Bolton fans rate Meite all that highly, I can't say I've seen that much of him over the past 12 months. Faye made Meite look decent at Bolton. I suppose he could do the same here, but still, no better than what we've got. Of all the names being bandied about Santa Cruz seems attainable if we pay enough and show ambition through other signings. The target area we need to set, I think is players not from the top 4 or Villa/Everton/Spurs/Portsmouth/City who are just barely not good enough for any of the top 4 to be sniffing around at. This means players like Santa Cruz, Ashton, Samba, Downing, Arca, Nolan, Shorey, Kenwyne Jones etc. It's a very small window but there are certainly benefits that could be reaped, and it's a far better idea than buying unproven foreigners or big club rejects. God, I am so not proud of laughing at Keane for buying Jones for 6m. Would that we had spent that money on him instead of buying Alan f****** Smith.

good point.

What I've been told is that he's one of those players who's good but has a regularly scheduled howler every month or so. You'll hopefully find out before we did that you just can't rely on a player like that as a central defender. cf) Titus Bramble Actually, Bent should definitely be in the list. Forgot about him.

We figure highly in that list although getting to the winner would take some working out. I figure it would be between Smith and one of the Scum's signings.. Richardson or Gordon maybe. Aw hell, here's a list. Gerald Cid - Whatever they payed for him, it was too much. Released over the winter and back in France with Nice. Rolando Bianchi - 8.8m. Looked decent but slowed down. Failed to settle and went back to Italy. Probably not coming back. David Rozenhal - 3m. Similar story to Bianchi. At leats he cost less. Alan Smith - 6m. ARGH. David Nugent - 6m. Poster boy for overrated English "Talent." Barely plays and probably isn't going to in the future with Defoe and Baros around. Kieran Richardson - 5m. Wouldn't be worth 5m if he was healthy, certainly isn't worth 5m when he's crocked 75% of the time. Craig Gordon - 9m. Newly promoted team makes ambitious 9m signing.. On a goalie. You couldn't make it up. Good at times but very inconsistent, even dropped for Darren Ward at one point. Younes Kaboul - 7m. A Spurs fan once deadpanned to me that Kaboul reminded him a lot of Titus Bramble. Kieron Dyer- 6m. Ouch. Thanks for the six million. Craig Bellamy - 7.5m. Can probably still do the business but injury ridden. Unsure if there'll be a place in the West Ham squad for him once he's back. Darren Bent - 16m!?! For him!?! mackems.gif Torres should without a doubt be on the "best transfers" list btw. I'm blind. Tevez, Jones, and Yakubu in for Woodgate, Muamba, and McFadden.

Well, thank God they haven't written up a "worst signings" list.

weeelll....i don't know. now and again we've had floods the dutch (breda) were very canny,the turks (fener...crushed dog s***)were worth it for the giggle....who are you protesting against ? The spurs fan who just turned the last few posts into a pyramid-fest?

either we keep him for too much or sell him for too little (or nothing.) For now I'm leaning towards "keep him for too much"

I strongly respect reasonable opposition posters like brummie, Dr. Spectrum, Martin Jol (most of the time) but like I've said, there's absolutely no reason for us to allow certain fans of other clubs who come here for no reason other than to talk shit to stick around.

one thing's for sure, in the extremely unlikely event that Smith is still a starting striker after Martins is fit again, Keegan has some serious explaining to do.

not to make any rash judgements about his capability (I do agree that he's a better player than the s*** he showed under Sam) but the adage "absence makes the heart grows fonder" seems to hold true for players in our squad. Geremi doesn't play for us for a couple months, and suddenly he's not s***. Martins hasn't played for a couple months so he's the answer to our problems. All ignoring that these were players that we were slagging off heavily before they left for the ANC. You know why Emre's lasted as long as he has? Because he's always out injured at just about the right time. Think Milner and Taylor could do very well with a two-month break right around now.

Norwich would be about his level. He won't be dropped though. For some reason every manager he works with falls in love with him. Credit to the guy, I suppose he works REALLY REALLY REALLY hard in training.

I just get madly depressed when I realize that players like Pato and the likes of Alan Smith are actually playing the same sport.

Absloutely. After the Man U game i deliberatly avoided this place because i couldn't be arsed to see the same nosensical contageous whinging. After a day or so people normally calm down and see the bigger picture. I am going to be happy on so many levels if we win Blackburn. Hopefully the Keegan good-feeling bandwagon that lasted about 30 minutes will get started again once we pick up a win. I remember being so happy when Owen scored against Boro and Villa because my heart was singing "FUCK YEAH, we win this, all the whinging is over and we can have fun supporting this club again." Didn't really work out in either case, of course.

As I was saying. You know where it leads though. First there's the honeymoon period, where everybody's hush-hush about saying anything bad about the manager. Then the criticism starts coming up (not that this is a bad thing mind.) Then you start having people who say that they "knew from the start that it was the wrong appointment" or "have been consistently saying that this will end in tears." (about where we are now) Then the obligatory "who if not Roeder/Allardyce/Keegan?" thread appears. People start getting excited over top-shelf managerial targets that we would never get in a million years. Before you know it "Taxi for Keegan!" is being sung at SJP and we've got ourselves a new manager again. And the merry-go-round continues.

The cycle is accelerating. Roeder got nearly a full season before people were screaming for his head. Sam got about a dozen games or so before Portsmouth, Derby, and Liverpool happened. KK? Out in six. Souness said in an interview that even Shearer would only get about six months more than any other manager. At the current rate of inflation, that means he'll get exactly six months and three games or so.