Jayson

The 3 players you mentioned all have history of scoring around the same amount Nolan did last season & their highest goalscoring seasons are much more recent than nolans was when he joined us. If we play well as a side, im sure theyll have the ability to find the net. Do you really believe ben arfa's awareness of the goal & ability to find it is lesser than Nolans? its all about how we play them.

He doesnt actually suggest that they arent looking at other players in those comments

Aye, you can go for up to 3 months on a visa waiver

Cant see this going well if they really want him. Awful message to the rest of our players if we sold also.

Dont see us getting Nzog+spending lots on a striker tbh

Long story short. Last season we may have excelled at something that was certain teams weakness, ie set pieces with Carroll/Nolan/Ameobi. So in those games we maximised our strength and scored lots because of it. This season we will hopefully be able to outplay more sides in open play using creativity, which is all teams weakness. Leading to better results against more sides, whilst potentially scoring less. The 2nd style of attacking is more effective against the majority than the others, which is what the league is about. Getting the best results against the majority.

Just reading at the end of the 2009-10 season he got himself 7 goals & 5 assists in his last 9 games. Lets get him back into that form please. Crazy stats.

Ben Arfa, Cabaye & Marveaux have all scored a decent amount of goals in past seasons. Thats the key really. Its well and good to get excited about us being able to move it around better, but the ball needs to hit the back of the net. In Nolan/Carroll we had players who could create goals from little moments. If the new players get their fair share also, happy days. Still want another striker ! Think its relying on Ba quite a lot to play him upfront on his own.

I think Ba and Carroll will be close in the goalscorers charts next season. May well be. Carroll gave more than goals though, he took the defences attention. The 5-1 for example, Assist for the 2nd, gets bramble sent off with Pace/strength, assist for the 4th. Do you expect Ba to have a similar impact atm? Im not sure i would, we'll have to see.

As said, you sell one very good striker you gotta replace him with atleast another or two pretty good strikers. Ba seems the latter to me & i want another. Carroll was bullying defences, i think Ba's more of a finisher. Maybe with a better team behind him, Ba will impress. Either way we should have the money to get two quality strikers to replace Carroll still.

Based on ? Signing Ba, of course. But we had Carroll last year... Not for the second half of last season, which is what we are building on :confused: No, we're building on what we had with Carroll. That was the whole point of selling him, otherwise we're standing still. We've let go of our two top scorers & the players that have come in are a combination of unproven in this country or coming off the back of injurys issues. Our strikeforce hasnt necessarily improved atall atm. Which it really should have.

Based on ?

Soccernet has Bendtner with 9 goals & 6 assists from 18 starts last season. Though much of them in FAC/CC. 1 goal from his 18 sub appearances. Id still have had him here easily, be interesting to see how he does.

Not sure how its not positive news tbh We've been over how the moneys being spent enough times, moaning about it doesnt change whats happening. If we're still potentially willing to spend near 11m plus wages on the right players, we may still get someone above the class of Long in before the window shuts. Which is more promising than it had been recently.

Theyd tell tell the English media anyway, not the french if that was their aim. Gone to Arsenal for around 11m reportedly. If we were up for competing with that it would indicate that we may still be willing to spend a decent sum of money.

Talking of Caen, was reading their striker El-Arabi has been linked to loads of clubs including us. Joint 3rd top scorer last season in France, even though his team finished 2 points off relegation. 24 years old, French, smaller pacey striker. Has said he wants to leave club. Scored against all the teams that finished in the top 4. Dont watch french football, would he not be a decent target ? Seems to fit what we look for.

Aye & the pressure increases everytime we reinforce our shitness at pen shootouts. No one wants to be "the one" to cock it up yet again. That always breaks one of them. If the first girl that missed doesnt do that, the last probably wouldnt have.

And balance is restored

Always one

lovely pen

Thats the good thing about getting in higher class attacking players to. Our defenders have to train against them also, should push them to improve.

Ned please slap yourself, you're being an idiot

Let them get excited, they dont get much lets be fair

Still want, but cant see them seeing him as a priority with Barton here. Marv, Jonas, Tiote, Cabaye, Barton already for a 4 man midfield if you dont include Ben Arfa. Cant see them coughing up 9m just to put another decent player on the bench. Money will go on a striker mostly i reckon & much cheaper 2nd option. Interesting to see if they were banking on Zog being available still in Jan though.

You do wonder how in all this time we've been able to scout replacement for Carroll, with 35m to play with originally They could've come up with Long as the 4th best option for prob near 7m. Out of all of Europe. They either rate him very highly, or we didnt look at many viable replacements.