fredbob

with goal on this one, i have no idea what people see in Smith, i dont remeber seeing anythink even slighlty potent about him, i mean, what posisiton is his strongest position nowadays??? We're absolutley fine in the strikers department, and our midfield looks tidy, not that he would add anything.

If its a replacement for Dyer then its gotta be Smith, does anyone know if there have been any "Smith holds talks with Newcaslte" stories, not that that is a great indicator, the thing is, and i'm clutching at straws here(hoping its not Smith) is that Smith seems pretty high profile for nothing substatial to be said about advanced talks....just a hunch.

Shola in the wings??? Get to f***. :lol: What a crock of s***. If we are talking about LEAGUE goals, which is the only real barometer, and what people always meant when they spoke about "20-a-season strikers", we have none. read it differently mate, it makes sense somehow, dint mean shola waiting in the wings, mentioned shola seperately from the 3, 20 goal a seaon strikers AND caroll in the wings, yeh but we're not, we're talking bout strikers who can score 20 goals in a season. By your criteria is there many teams who have 20 LEAGUE goal scorers, Drogba? Rnaldo? Emile Heskey???

I cant think of a single squad which has 4, 20 goals per season strikers, we have 3, with shla and Carrol in the wings, i'd say we were pretty comfortable in that area, defienelty needs to go to defenders but the only defender we've really bee linked with in the meadia that i saw was the Drame who's gone to Sochaux(?), i'd be livid if Smith turned up here with a £6m prie tag, i dont understand why there doesn't seem to be many links with dfenders in the media, is nufc being super secretive with there pursuits or are they just plain inactive or is it that Smith is actually a genuine link.....

See, i wdn't have Eidur or Smith as a replacement or Dyer, i cant see either of them being the type of plyaer who can break from midfield with such pace like Dyer, i know there are a lot of Dyer bashers out ther but really would lovehim to stay, by far one of our best players despite being a cock. For me Smith doesn't seem to offer anything we havent already got, Eidur has the natural intelligence which would come in useful, from what ive seen, Barnes ooks the ideal replacement, i rememebr one match and he was part of 4 goal that derby stuck away scoring a couple himself, he seems to be like dyer but mayber better.

Crikey, i didnt realise its been just 2 weeks that they've been in charge, puts it all in perspective, nice rant bytheway HTT made complete sense a helluva lot to look forward to

I dont think it'll be smith either, he seems pretty adamant that he wants defenders, so i think it'll be someone cheap and someone he knows of, i recon it'll be Faye.

ISn't that called opinion?? People not allowed to interpret stories then?? STORIES being the clue there Does that even make sense?

ISn't that called opinion?? People not allowed to interpret stories then??

Now, am gonna try and be careful not to sound like on of these doommongers and am sure to fail, but i read to taday about 5 or 6 newspapers all sayin the same thing, about money being made available, now generally i usully take what the papers say as horse s***, especially the small print and vain attempts to try and squeaze any drama out of a minor altercation, but today unlike most other days, the papars have been writing substantial amounts about the same 'money plea' subject. To me there does seem to be a shred of truth of wats happening, HTT has pretty summed up my feelings abo the present state and i have been very optimistic about everything that SA has done, but i feel that Ashley being an agressive astute businessman is unable to release any substantial funds into a company with debts of £80m, it wouldn't make sense....not yet anyway, which puts us in a difficult place

People are ridiculously impatient, i cant understand what people are giving Ashley such a hard time, he has just spent £150m on this club, and i cant seem to find a single quote which suggests that money isnt available, quite the contrary to be fair, all i seem to be hearing is SA complaining that the player we are targetting are going elswhere, and he does seems to be targetting a lot a players, this to me suggests that we are being slow in the market, i dont think it makes business sense paying way over the odds JUST to get the player you're after, thats historically what we do. Add to that mix that we have a new chairman who doesnt know the ropes too well then you're bound to come short somewhere, the difference with SA, is that he seems to be targetting the players that we defineltey need, and have needed for yearsie 4 defenders, you look back to the old regime/regimes and you get inactivity due to incompeent managers, and poor charimanship. I dont really remember such a concerted effort to get a new lb or rb in such a long time.

I think that its clear that we do need 4 new defenders, and slightly dissapionting(nothing more, nothing less) that we seem to have hit a brick wall in our acquisition, but i think people seem to forget that SA organisation alone of our current defence would make an improvment of 10-15 goas, how many points would that equate to??

Yeh, precisely, apart from the fact that Pompey aren't cnsidered a 'glamour' club i cant see why he would choose us over them. The fact that he's be turned down by us once before makes the potential transfer even more unlikely. I think his next stop will be l'espania to be honest. Id be happy to have him. In fact if only he were a coupleyear younger he'd be perfect but at the moment there is no better suitor to our problem than him.

Yeh great news to be honest, more chuffed with this news than i am with OWen "commiting" looks like our strike force has a bit of venom now, would love to see a 4th or 5th striker who could be a real prospect. Not really seen much of Caroll to say if he's a definitive prospect. it stil kinda niggles me that Shola is our 4th striker, i dont really like him as a player, too gangly....poor mans crouch. Lets just see what defenders Sam decideds to bring in

Where has all this come from? I understand he's injury prone that that is a weakness for any player, but why would we want to get rid of a player who is obviously a very tidy player. I genuinely cant 100% judge any player properly who has played within the last 2 regimes. Simple as that. I dont think there was a single player who has had 2/3 consistent years of good footballunde Souness or Roeder...is that a coicidence or a relative point. In my point it is very relevant. Further to that, i honestly believe that we want to be keeping players who are cpable of somethin that can turn a game. He is indisputably one of those players.

how did he do the other night? From the tiny clips that i saw he seemed to be in good nick, along with dyer

yes

I would love Makalele here, i think he is absolutely brilliant, not sure bout his age and wages, but there isn't a player in the premiership who protects the defence better than Makalele. would compliment emre perfectly.

Yeh , i dont get it, Milner was a good great player for us last season. People seem to get frustrated with him because he doesn't have any outstanding exciting attribute. milner suffers for the fact that he hasn't really had a target for his crosses all season. If Shearer had all those crosses that Milner slapped in, we'd be raving bout both of them. For obvious reasons. Poor mans beckham!!

errrr ,martins wasnt cheap?? £10m on a 22 year who didn't really play a great deal. Adriano will never go for anything less then £20m...guarantueed.

Even if this takeover does occur, does anyone think we will get any extravagent transfer funds?? Ashley obviously isint in the same financial league as Abrahmovic so i dont tink he would be willling to risk too much of his income of a manager he hasn't appionted, To be honest, having spent £133m on this club, and with about £30m (?) to spend this summer pre Ashley, does anyone think that he would put anymore than another £30m to the kitty? Bare in mind that the takeover will be big footballing news, surely £60-70m wont last too far with clubs magically raising the prices of their players EVEN more when we come sniffing?? Adriano....£26m...i cant see SA waniting to spend that even on Adriano

Going out on a whim here, but i beleive that in light of the Ashley business, SA might no longer be the right man, for the job. For me, SA is the right man 3 years too late. If the takeover does occur and Ashley is Abrahamovic-esque then the focus for the manager automatically changes from rebuilding the club to achieving substantial success. There is no question about this, for me, while SA is a very good premiership manager, from what i have seen at bolton i dont belive he will be the type of manager that could sustain us in the CL. Something which i belive that Ashely will eventually demand. Now obvioulsy this is based on absolute specualtion,I think that Ashley will look to bring in a high profile manager, a world class one which i think that we will now be able to attract. If man city have managers like Co Adriaanse, Juande Ramos, Sven, Houllier etc.....then what would we have available?? I honeslty belive that if the takeover occurs this summer and Ashley takes full control, as sad as it seems but if SA doesn't achieve 5th at the ABSOLUTE lowest, then he will be out fo the job. The reason for this being that Ashley wont look to build this club gradulally like SA would do, but he would need to acheive reasonable success which can be sustained and improved on in order to launch nufc into a global brand the only way to do this is to win.

Why does everyone rate hyypia? I know he was a good defender but i think he's way past it now, i honestly think he's a slightly better moore. Plus he's too similar type of defender to taylor which in my opinion wouldn't make a good partnership. We defo need a Campbell type defender.

What kind o defender is Ben Haim, to be honest i haven't reall sen anythn of him. I think the best defensive partnerships are one where one defender is good on th ball and can bring the ball out of defence, has good anticipation etc....a ferdinand or woodgate type player, for me i think taylor could be that type of defender, the other partner needs to be a wall, someone who is commited and brave someone like campbell or terry.Any type of defender who is a wall would be perfect for this team.

Sooo.....which players wil improve under Allardyce???