Segun Oluwaniyi

London is an hour from Birmingham by train. I've done it before. It is not a reason to jeopardise your future with the current employers. I like Benteke a lot as a player. He was probably my favourite in the league last year style-wise, but he needs to cleanse himself of the money-takers he has hanging with him back from wherever. It's the same problem Ba and a lot of African or Afro-European players seem to have and it messes with their careers.

Love how they make signing players look so easy. You'd think it was impossible the way our lot go on. People go on about our board the way a scorned woman does about her ex lover. And for good reason. They're hopeless. Have your issues with the board, but don't make things up. We have made many similar signings within the last calibre year. Good for Norwich to sign a highly midfielder from a top Dutch team, but we did the same exact thing last season. We also signed Sissoko who is more highly regarded than Fer just a few months ago. Are you complaining specifically because we haven't signed any this window? It's hard to have much thought about it, when it is only nearing the midpoint and the usually much more active second half. August is where I'd think you would see most of the bigger business being completed.

Love it There would be paragraphs to spare if Jozy was from Nigeria. I'm just saying, Jozy would've bagged a first-half hat trick against Tahiti. The quality of defenders would have been a step up from the likes of VVV Venlo, Bermuda, and US owned Central American country #4, so it would have been a good test for him.

It's country≥club for most people outside of Europe and this will always create clashes Having said that, hoping for a player to "do well" at your most indirect club rival is....questionable. I understand supporters from this country are desperate, but this may not be the way to go about it.

Altidore is just average player, with no special qualities whatsoever, but that makes him one of Sunderland's best attacking players by default, so he'll do fine there.

Love how they make signing players look so easy. You'd think it was impossible the way our lot go on. People go on about our board the way a scorned woman does about her ex lover.

It is the equivalent of there being corruption in the race for promotion in the Conference or something like that. Nigerian football names are usually odd to the European ear, anyway though. There's corruption at far higher levels in Europe, it's just the stupid blatantness of it that's so funny. Yeah, it's hilarious. I just wonder what the point of no return was. I mean, you would think after the twentieth or thirtieth goal you might realise that the fix was a bit too obvious and stop scoring, but once you get past forty, there isn't really a point in going back, right? You might as well just keep going. It's hard to have shame once you get to that point. Our domestic football is an embarrassment, though at every level. There are blatantly fixed matches in the Premier League every week. It was only last month that we had the "attack" at the game between Akwa and Wolves in the PL. The home side were up 2-0 at half, and when everyone came out for the second half, the ref came out of the toilets with his shoes off and his clothes torn claiming he was attacked and refused to restart the match, which was canceled. The only problem that no one agrees with the story besides the ref himself. It is a fair point, too. Why would the fans attack the referee when they were winning by two goals.

I think you are overrating Sinclair anyway, but he hasn't wasted that much time. Just this last season, really. He was an (expensive) youth player at Chelsea and was playing consistently at lower levels throughout his time at that club. It's easy to blame his club history, but I think he is an above average forward player, but ntohing more than that.

It is the equivalent of there being corruption in the race for promotion in the Conference or something like that. Nigerian football names are usually odd to the European ear, anyway though.

Joel Chuks Obi?

I don't think he looked out of place in either the Championship or League 1 at a very young age, which leads me to believe he would have been fine at that level. The guy has finally succeeded in throwing his life away, anyway. I'm always hesitant with these rape charge because so many of them lead to nothing when they involve people who are "known", but Ranger still has a long list of miscreancy. Even if is innocent, no professional club will touch him. The ages of 19-22 are ones where you need to be growing mentally, especially as a footballer, and this guy has regressed sharply. Oh well.

The Iraqis remind of a West African side more than any massive underdog. They horribly underachieve because of circumstance, infrastructure, corruption (and/or war). They have a large, extremely young population and produce a lot of athletic, natural talent that is never cultivated because there is no serious league there and no legitimate player development unless the players go abroad. In terms of potential, I would put them second behind South Korea in Asia, until China becomes world dominant in forty years time.

I'd imagine Bent has been eating well ever since his move to Spurs about 6-7 years ago. This has not stopped him from scoring at a decent rate.

If we were coming off a successful season, people would be content with Bent. The hatred towards it is just negativity for the sake of negativity, as this is the norm at the moment. He'd be a decent option. People keep talking about how compatible he is with Cisse, but Papiss isn't the type of forward that thrives in a two striker system anyway, and he won't be any less compatible with Bent than he was with Ba. If we acquire Bent and an aggressive, pacey wide player this window, I will be happy with our attacking unit.

Good work. I can't see a way around LRD's logic.

Mathematically, what is the maximum number of points a team could need to ensure they were not relegated. Essentially, I am asking what is the the threshold of "absolute safety". I was searching for the answer in my head, but the permutations are too much for me. I believe 42 is the highest that has ever been needed in the Premiership (West Ham's previous relegation), but there must be potential for the number to be substantially higher.

This "big club" thing is irritating. I wonder if the homeless run about the streets in your country screaming about how big they are and substantial their following is. The past is the past and money is money.

I thought Norwich were the worst side in the Premiership last year after the new year, maybe bar Reading. I really think they were worse than NUFC, SAFC, Stoke, and the rest. Horrendous, negative football and poor results. Little quality, no game plan going forward, and just a stark change from the first few months of Hughton's tenure. I would have tipped them to do go down before these signings. They've done well to get in some nice players up front, but I don't think it means anything more than safe lower midtable, assuming they can adapt fairly quickly.

So would Ribery and Lewandowski..... but just like Remy and Ince there is zero chance of it happening. I don't consider two Championship players we've been heavily linked to as an impossibility. I doubt we will sign both, but I could definitely see one (probably Loic Remy) ending up here.

I would have really enjoyed Kone here. Very useful player. I hope this is a sign of our interest in signing that type of forward. We need pace and aggression upfront.

Back at Rennes he was most definitely primarily a wide player. I actually believe we are using him centrally and sparingly to some extent to avoid him getting injured. Different league, different country. Apparently Gouffran survived as a winger over there for almost a decade, which says it all. Gouffran definitely has the capabilities to survive as wide player in any league. I think he is more suited to it despite his good goal record as a centre forward. Not necessarily in a flat 4-4-2, but I doubt he would be deployed that way.

If we plan to use Gouffran mostly as a centre forward, this is more than enough depth. I'd like us to sign another forward leaning player, whose role should be determined by Gouffran's position. I wonder if Pardew has enough input over transfers for this to be the case, though.

The negativity on the football board in terms of transfer has swung far past logicality since the appointment of Kinnear. People are up in arms about stories that have nothing to do with us, rumours that have no foundations, the failure to acquire players they haven't heard or seen (and that the club hasn't shown interest in), and want to castrate themselves every time some team spends more then three or four million on a player. It is very annoying.

Bent would be a perfectly reasonable signing, assuming we sign one more reinforcements. A lot hinges on how Pardew intends to use Gouffran, imo.

You don't feel we've done a good job in getting players here in recent times? Obviously we need more, but I find this constant criticism of our transfer dealings extremely weird. We almost got relegated due to our transfer policy last season. It definitely wasn't our transfer policy that saw up drop 11 places in the league. We could've improved the team more, fair enough, but Guthrie was replaced and it was only Leon Best who we didn't bring in adequate replacement for. All the transfer policy can do is leave the club with adequate personnel to achieve the club's goals and I think this is what it did. It didn't between August and mid January. The forum has been through this a million times now, but the squad was almost identical to the one from the season before. I don't think the clubs around us improved enough to use this as justification for our poor performances. It would have been much better if we had gotten it the players from January earlier and "pushed on", but having the same team as the season before wasn't the reason "we almost got relegated".