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Give him money! mackems.gif And people wanted a reason to why its a good idea to sack him now!!! The thing is, Nolan's the sort of player you can see him going for isn't it? A midfielder who creates f*** all but gives a 100% and gets stuck in, the people who value a team full of grafters should love this one. I would be hugely disappointed. FYP. It's a load of bollocks anyway. This is speculation on speculation. Let's hope you're right Davidos. Why sell Parker if you're just going to turn around and sign Nolan 4 months later. To replace Barton? True, I suppose he can be forgiven for failing to anticipate Barton throwing himself in jail. Still, would rather have Parker back tbh.

Give him money! mackems.gif And people wanted a reason to why its a good idea to sack him now!!! The thing is, Nolan's the sort of player you can see him going for isn't it? A midfielder who creates f*** all but gives a 100% and gets stuck in, the people who value a team full of grafters should love this one. I would be hugely disappointed. FYP. It's a load of bollocks anyway. This is speculation on speculation. Let's hope you're right Davidos. Why sell Parker if you're just going to turn around and sign Nolan 4 months later.

Would love him here. Hopefully our improved fitness regimen means he won't break down instantly like I'd expect all injury prone players to do under the previous regime. And what's this about 3/4 mil? Ladies and gents, if you want to correctly guess the asking price for young english players these days, just take whatever you think is reasonable and add 10 (million).

Wait, wait, wait... hold the phone... a whole two goals?! In 90 minutes?! That's outrageous. It can't be done! Funny, Roeder said almost the exact same thing around this time last year. ...Hope that isnt' an omen.

Still a class player. I hate him for going to the MLS instead of coming back to the Prem. ...Of course, if he came back you just know that he'd have scored 2~3 wondergoals against us by now.

Apparently now speaking to Portsmouth. I suppose they could use a striker considering that their three best ones will be leaving for the ACN.

How is refusing a player permission to speak to other clubs leaving the matter in his hands? (scratches head)

Would be nice to have him off so everyone and their mothers won't have him as their Fantasy Football captain anymore. EDIT: I can't spell.

well, that was quick.

Rest of the world - "Reading FC Does Not Matter" ...On a more serious note, I suppose having interest in the cup is a luxury only clubs reasonably safe from relegation can afford.

[superpessimism] For some reason deals never go through when we're the first club linked. Think he'll be going to Pompey. Sigh. [/superpessimism] Seriously though, if there's a bid from Pompey or Villa or Spurs or whatnot, what incentive would he have to choose us?

The OP is basically the equivalent of saying "Kaka Henry Ronaldinho Pirlo David Villa Nesta Wouldn't it be nice if these players played for us?" And don't come out with the whole "If City can get Sven we can get anyone too!" Shtick. The only reason Sven went to city is because his reputation had been massively tarnished by the English job. No big club would want him while that stigma still hung over his head. ...As long as we're dreaming, I'd like Guus Hiddink, thank you very much.

Blackburn is apparently signing 17 year old Korean youth international Yoon Bit-Ga-Ram to a youth contract. Not that I expect anyone to care (I really don't either,) but I just find it frightening that Blackburn's scouting network is now extensive enough to be finding prospects all the way out in Korea. Wonder where ours is at?

I know you've only used him as an example, but I don't think we could get Bentley now whichever board we were under. He's playing well for a team above us and on the verge of the England squad. We'd be a sideways step for him. one step backwards or sideways, 2 steps forward is how I would see it. Moving to Newcastle from Blackburn would be a complete no-brainer for most players. You don't know if you don't try. And I wouldn't use our current position as an excuse to settle for 2nd best. Players generally don't want to go through the trouble of uprooting themselves/leaving supportive fans and established teammates in order to go to another club unless there's a significant gain though. While I certainly agree that we're a more attractive club than Blackburn in the abstract, regardless of where we are on the table at any given time, I don't think we're more attractive enough to get a player to go through the difficulties of a move just to come to us. Unless we're going to be offering these "sideways step" players double what they're earning right now... And we all know where that got us in the past. On a completely unrelated side note, Blackburn would probably ask for at least 20m for Bentley. And rightfully so. I take the point, ref the last line. Who would pay it though, unless he stays at Blackburn until his contract is nearly over ? One of the big 4 if and when he gets good enough? Otherwise, I don't see him going anywhere in the near future.

I know you've only used him as an example, but I don't think we could get Bentley now whichever board we were under. He's playing well for a team above us and on the verge of the England squad. We'd be a sideways step for him. one step backwards or sideways, 2 steps forward is how I would see it. Moving to Newcastle from Blackburn would be a complete no-brainer for most players. You don't know if you don't try. And I wouldn't use our current position as an excuse to settle for 2nd best. Players generally don't want to go through the trouble of uprooting themselves/leaving supportive fans and established teammates in order to go to another club unless there's a significant gain though. While I certainly agree that we're a more attractive club than Blackburn in the abstract, regardless of where we are on the table at any given time, I don't think we're more attractive enough to get a player to go through the difficulties of a move just to come to us. Unless we're going to be offering these "sideways step" players double what they're earning right now... And we all know where that got us in the past. On a completely unrelated side note, Blackburn would probably ask for at least 20m for Bentley. And rightfully so.

People should also consider the fact that the Premiership is getting stronger and stronger every year. Teams who actually have long term plans - Everton, Portsmouth, Villa, Blackburn etc. get exponentially harder to beat year by year as their teams gel and the manager is able to shape the squad in his image. Even other teams who lack that kind of long-term thinking such as Man City and West Ham have made huge steps up some years (like this one) by spending cash and getting lucky on a couple of signings. The Premiership as a whole is also just getting better and better as more money flows into it and it slowly eclipses La Liga and Serie A as the world's biggest football league. While everyone else has been getting better, we took huge backwards steps under Souness and Roeder. Naturally, it's going to be a difficult job for Sam to not only get us on the path to recovery but also to make up for the already wide gap between us and other mid table teams.

People have really, really short memories concerning how horrible we were under Roeder. Compare yesterday to the corresponding fixture last year (0-1 to Man City) does anyone honestly believe that we played worse than we did then?

shorter, faster Ameobi.

Getting "one or two players to instantly improve our squad" is a LOT more difficult than it sounds, even if money is not the object. We have to make the cold assessment: who that's better than what we already have is available and will sign for Newcastle United? I think we're all in agreement that the GK position doesn't need improvement, even with Given's drop in form. Centre Back? Taylor/Faye/Cacapa have proven to be mostly competent. To get a significant improvement you would need to find someone on par with the likes of Dunn/Lescott/Distin etc. Who in England has that ability and isn't already at a club better off than we are? Fullbacks? Beye has us covered on the right, and a good specialty left back is just about the rarest commodity in Europe right now. Central midfield? Faye has proven he can play the holding role quite well, and Butt has put in good shifts for the most part. We don't need another defensive midfielder. As for creative OMFs, good luck finding one available in England. There are a lot of names from the continent being bandied about, but how many of them don't have bigger clubs sniffing at them? And let's not forget that a few years ago Emre was a "highly promising creative player from Europe" as well. Wingers? On the left side, who that we could sign woud be better than Zog and Duff? I suppose the right wing is one area we could potentially improve, although immediate targets escape me. Strikers? As much as we hate them, we are not capable of signing anyone with the quality to push Viduka, Owen, Smith, or Martins out of the first team. (Anelka and Berbatov? Nothing more than pipe dreams.) The only way out of this dilemma for us is to scout quality players in smaller leagues abroad before other teams do (difficult, considering that our scouting network has been in shambles for years,) or to pick up scraps from the bigger clubs like we've been doing for a while now. (The likes of Sidwell, Ben Haim, Brown, Crouch) Of course, in the second case we'd have to be competing with other mid table clubs as well, not to mention the fact that this strategy hasn't exactly worked wonders for us in the past. (cf: Babayaro, Parker, Duff, Owen, Smith) Overall, it's not a matter of us only making "squad-padding" signings because we're overly cautious. Making "instant impact" quality signings is possibly one of the most difficult things for a mid table club like us to do. And I dont' see it happening this winter, no matter how much money we have.

I've dropped the high quality def approach of late. Why? Good defs cost about 2/3 what good strikers and mids do and deliever points about as if not even more consistently. I've gone 4-5-1 because I figured shelling out on two quality strikers is a waste of time. As efficient as good midfielders are, I'm even considering 5-4-1 since defenders are so dirt cheap.

This thing is starting to feel increasingly futile for me because everyone's teams are gradually becoming the same so no matter how well I score, everyone else who's still trying will score well as well. I might pass a few people who've stopped bothering and no longer update their teams, but I don't think I'll ever make any signifcant gains from my current position because everyone above me pretty much has 6~7 of the same players I have. (And the high scoring ones, too) Basically everyone has Ronaldo and either Gerrard or Fabregas, and some combination of Barry/Bentley/Petrov/Elano + Maybe one low cost midfielder (usually Dempsey) and some combination of Laursen/Distin/Lescott/Ferdinand/Cambell/Vidic in the back, and either Green or James in goal. There's a bit of variation in strike forces, but that's only because they're the least efficient cost-per-points so a lot of people are willing to cut some corners. Ultimately the game just seems to come down to who can best guess the form players of the season before it starts, since after we're a few weeks in it's dead-on easy to identify who's going to have a good year. I mean, not that I'm expecting super-depth from a free web-based fantasy game, but still...

Mate, if you think we're playing relegation football today then I'm sorry but you're either blind or precisely the type of "fan" that is bringing this club down. Ironic that you'd mention fans being "disloyal and unprofessional."

Duff looks... Fast. That's unexpected. Not that he's playing well, but just trying to find some positives.

Surely not. As for the game, I think it will either be us nicking a 0-0 draw or playing well and losing 0-1. No matter how shit we are, we very rarely get absolutely hammered by the big 4 clubs (Liverpool home this year excepted.)

Well, thank God for that. Korean tabloid writers must be projectile vomiting right around now.