Ketsbaia

.com reported matty upson was signing a few weeks back and that didnt happen. wouldnt mind this one though

ideal scenario: 'Arry gives up on Downing, leaving Boro with no money to improve a relegation-threatened team. instead, he goes for his second choice - charlie - and in exchange we get a bit of money to buy a CM, as well as Bale/O' Hara/Huddlestone. Spot on I've had enough of him now, he's too inconsistent for us and a disruptive influence. i wonder how this'll affect his good friend oba.....

would rather just have the money for smith.....it is what we need, after all.

surely the point to selling smith would be to get the money?? seems pointless to get mido instead.

But, you could equally bring up a list of players that cost much less and have been better and then say fit him in that list. Don't compare it to the bentley deal, he's way overpriced, look at him on his own merits. About 12 million I'd expect for him considering his contract and boros reliuctance to let him go. well yeh, theres been better players for cheaper and worse players that were more expensive. its hit and miss really, but i just reckon with the way man city are inflating the market, the bids that have been made by spurs are too low

i meant that in terms of impact over here (mainly referring to jo and bentley), boro have a proven premiership player. english, left-sided, good age......if anything, the £14 million they rejected from spurs was too cheap. especially when he's the best player in their relegation-threatened team. he's not gonna go cheap

shevchenko £30mill veron £28mill jo £19mill bentley £17mill luque £10mill .........boro have every right to demand more for downing. he's a handy player.

unless we can find somebody else to sell, i can see this happening pompey are in freefall so dont give them a lifeline, our midfield is rotten WITH barton. it doesnt bear thinking about without him. theres no quotes or owt in that article though is there??

blaise matuidi from st etienne is a fantastic player......central midfield as well

would definitely go for both of these. midtjylland are a very handy team. in fact scandinavia as a whole is loaded with talent, but it makes far too much sense to search there.....thats why it wont happen.

maybe over time we'll see the sale of given as vital to the club's evolution. we shudnt need his transfer money to do this, but if it gets invested on a couple of gems - someone we can mould a new team around - the club can progress. its at the stage now where i really wouldnt mind selling everyone and starting from scratch (except maybe jonas, bassong and shay). but if sacrificing shay means we sign someone cheap and brilliant like diarra/cahill/lescott/valencia/santa cruz turned out to be, then so be it. of course, do any of us really trust JFK to do this? btw it hurts to say that because i love shay, but i'm trying to scrape ANY positives together from all this. then when things dont work out at citeh, we bring him back in the summer for £2 million im crying on the inside

this is gonna be the longest month ever. im only now starting to realise how much ashley and kinnear are killing this club can somebody please save us??

with the exchange rate so poor at the moment, i see a lot of premiership clubs looking domestically rather than abroad. maybe thats why kinnear's looking at the championship

wont believe this until it happens. but if he does go, its the end of the world

Premiership: 1 Cech 2 Given 3 Reina 4 Van der Sar 5 Friedel World: 1 Casillas 2 Cech 3 Buffon 4 Given 5 Akinfeev I love rankings

well pompey and west ham could definitely be in freefall after the january window. and if boro sell downing, wigan sell heskey and blackburn sell santa cruz, theyll be in trouble too (although I think Blackburn would use that money well). Hull's bubble will burst, Man City will buy themselves up the league and Villa definitely wont get top 4. 1 Man United 2 Chelsea 3 Liverpool 4 Arsenal 5 Everton 6 Aston Villa 7 Man City 8 Fulham 9 Bolton 10 Spurs 11 Hull 12 Newcastle 13 Blackburn 14 Portsmouth 15 West Ham 16 Boro 17 Sunderland 18 Wigan 19 Stoke 20 West Brom Despite there being a lot of troubled teams this year, I struggled to pick a third team to go down. tbh, i dont really think wigan will. thats what we'll have to be careful of.

The minute I saw Taylor scored........I just laughed. You can't write this stuff.

few random thoughts: would love to get matuidi from st etienne for a CM. i see pompey have been linked with him today, be proper jealous if they got him.... but if JFK wants to go dutch, jonathan de guzman would be lovely. and when it comes to lower league players, i reckon the only ones that are good enough are doyle, larsson, kightly, mattock, delph and ebanks-blake if we're going all foreign; matuidi, sakho and defour O0

Lets look at the form guide: Boxing Day = defeat Away match = defeat its Wigan = 1-0 defeat (via Ryan Taylor) ...........im going for a Newcastle festive win

hate spurs. LOVE defeating them :celb: end of. what a beautiful day

i'd say physical strength, passing ability and i'd look at the person as well as the footballer. too often we've had good players, but their attitudes have been a letdown. thats why im warming to the bullard link.......not the greatest technically, but you know youll try his hardest. its stating the obvious, but sometimes thats all you need.

bad scores yet again. its beyond a joke now. west ham can beat villa, and man city shud beat brom.........could be relegation zone again tomorrow

i guess that would explain the mareque links the other week

The Allardyce hate on here makes me laugh. C'mon, he's clearly a good manager and I hope he stays unemployed cos I want Blackburn and Sunderland to go down!! The only good thing out of him getting the Blackburn job is that he might want to buy Alan Smith and Cacapa!!!

From The Times' Top 50 British footballers of 2008.....they've gotta be joking!!