Jackie Broon

Or be allowed to. It was looking like they weren't planning to spend anything in this window to try to avoid very likely relegation, going down without a fight. Their owners might see the £25m as going a long way to covering the cost of relegation rather than gambling it on staying up.

His injury record seems good, he's played all but 9 of Burnley's PL games in the past 3 seasons.

Any of them who are available for loan (Origi certainly isn't) would have much more attractive options than Burnley available to them.

Yeah, watching his 50 goals for Burnley there are some really good finishes in there, and surprisingly few tap-in / headed goals (not sure whether that's a good or bad thing )

We have apparently and he apparently has no interest in joining us.

I just can't see them attracting decent players in their position and/or their owners being willing to pay the January/desperation premium.

It could, but I doubt it. They're going to find the same problems as us recruiting in January when they are desperate, facing likely relegation and everyone knows they have a wodge of cash to spend. That's if their owners allow that money to be spent, which is not guaranteed. I'm more concerned that it could bite us by handing 3 points to Watford when they play Burnley next week, because ultimately I think it'll be Watford that we need to finish ahead of to stay up. It's a gamble, but we need to gamble right now or we're going down. We need a striker and it doesn't look like there are any better options immediately available.

Not that much, Wood only played 8 more games over the past 4 seasons than Wilson. Wilson is a classier player, no doubt, but Wood is defiantly adequate cover for him.

He's outscored Wilson in 3 of the past 4 seasons he's played in the PL. Wilson has only got into double figures in 2 of his 6 past PL seasons, Wood has in all of his 4 past seasons.

They're basically in the same position as us now, everyone knows they'll be desperate for a replacement in this window and have big chunk of cash to spen, they'll have no bargaining power.

Yeah, I've always been impressed by what I've seen of him, a good old school No.9 If we stay up he'll have been worth every penny, if we go down he'll be useful for us in the Championship.

Because we're desperately in need of a striker for the next two vital matches. Without that we go down which will cost a lot more than £20m.

We've stayed up the past two seasons on luck alone, our performances really haven't merited it.

It's hard to see where that run would come from, Watford is our only remaining home match against a team currently in the bottom five, on paper it's our last really winnable match. If we lose it there's no realistic way out of relegation for us.

I didn't say he was world class, I said he looked world class in that match, against other world class players. There was clearly the ability in there to do that, he just didn't make the most of it.

https://www.nufc.com/html/2002-03html/2002-12-11barcelona-a.html He was immense that night, despite us losing 3-1. Never really saw him impose himself physically on a match like that again unfortunately.

In that CL match against Barcelona he looked world class. He have the ability, he just never really made the most of it for whatever reason.

Wasn't it strongly rumoured that McClaren was appointed on Carr's advice?

Yeah, there's no chance Spurs are selling anyone to us, same probably goes for Liverpool.

We'd expect to have less possession against top 6 clubs, but 26-34% is appalling. Even in those games where we've had more possession than the opposition we've looked far from in control of the midfield. Even discounting the statistics I just can't see how you could get what you've said from watching our matches, our midfield has looked sloppy and weak as piss and the heart of our problems.

I couldn't disagree more, our biggest problem has been lack of control in midfield, that had led to pressure on the defence which has in part led to defensive howlers. In terms of possession we've only had more than the opposition in two of Howe's 8 PL matches: Man U 31% Man City 28% Liverpool 26% Leicester 53% Burnley 48% Norwich 31% Arsenal 34% Brentford 52% Even in those two there's no way we could have been described as having decent control of the midfield.

There's absolutely no indication that the don't care, and numerous indications that they very much do (such as public complaints about our takeover being allowed, calling an emergency meeting to discuss it, changing the PL's rules to stop us from getting big sponsorship deals). It would make absolutely zero sense for them, faced with the very likely prospect of us being relegated and solving those issues, to help us avoid that in any way. In fact, it's much more likely that they would want to make us think that they are willing to sell or loan to us just to waste our time.

I can't see any of the big 6 loaning or selling us players. They want us to go down, they're not going to help us in any way. We need to be looking abroad.

Because they want to keep him as back-up for the rest of the season, even if that means him leaving on a free at the end of it.

Cambridge are 16th in League One, Watford are above us in the table and have players who will run at and cause all sorts of problems for our defence, who put 4 past Man U and 5 past Everton. They're not even slightly comparable. Lose against them at the weekend and realistically we're down.