Hughesy

Also been highly scathing about NUFC and the fans if I remember rightly.

Anzhi would be pretty tough. Just had a look at their squad on wiki... not bad!! The rest are much of a muchness I reckon.

It doesn't even bear thinking about how many goals he would have scored without the injuries.

Never understand that to be honest. Are they just never that good to begin with? Seems to happen to our youngsters (often highly rated ones as well) more than other clubs, but that is probably just down to us actually having an interest in their careers as opposed to youngsters from other clubs. Stopping full-time training makes a massive difference, players suddenly are only training once or twice a week and have to balance the demands of playing and travelling with a job outside of football. On top of this you need the mental drive to play competitively in the knowledge that you top-level dreams are virtually over. That's why you see so many players just slide off the face of the earth within a couple of seasons of their release. True - I suppose it must take a fair bit of drive to make yourself play at non-league level once you have been used to the facilities at a top flight club and knowing that there is very little chance of you making it big. Trying to think now of the players who have been highly rated over the years who have disappeared. Always remember Paul Brayson being tipped for great things.

Never understand that to be honest. Are they just never that good to begin with? Seems to happen to our youngsters (often highly rated ones as well) more than other clubs, but that is probably just down to us actually having an interest in their careers as opposed to youngsters from other clubs. The vast majority of lads that go through the Academy system will not make a career out of professional football. Yeah, I realise that the vast majority don't make it, but I suppose I still find it strange that they don't even get taken on by league 2/non league teams and at least make a go of it at that level. You would think that they must have been pretty talented to have been picked up by a PL team at a young age and then had the benefit of years of good coaching.

Never understand that to be honest. Are they just never that good to begin with? Seems to happen to our youngsters (often highly rated ones as well) more than other clubs, but that is probably just down to us actually having an interest in their careers as opposed to youngsters from other clubs.

I like Matt Holland as well but the BBC seem to use him very sparingly. Don't care what anyone else says either, I still think Savage is a good pundit. Think Savage is quite good. Jason Roberts on the other hand... I remember sitting through a 606 on Radio Five in which Jason Roberts, who I believe is a PFA representative of some kind, was claiming that it was acceptable to deliberately try to injre someone who is showboating.

I remember not being sure whether own goals were in fact called 'home goals'. I suppose the abbreviation 'o.g.' should have been a clue..

You can't just say "who though?". The club will obviously have a list of well scouted players who they'd want who most of us haven't heard of or haven't seen much of. Carroll being asked to pick up where he left off with us is as much of, if not more of, a risk than us signing an "unknown" from abroad. If someone says there are much better players around for £15 million, their argument somewhat flounders if they can't actually name a better player.

I can't now remember, but did Pardew say when we signed Cisse that the money for that transfer had come out of this summer's transfer budget?

Top work there from the Bantagonist.

Maybe in a business sense it's fine. But, I never really like it when managers talk about other players. We hate Redknapp for it and Rodgers for now chatting about it. Would seem pretty hypocritical if we liked it when Pards did it Yeah.. but it's Liverpool. So it's funny and endearing.

bantanamo bay

That's the point isn't it?

Same here - if they were being honest, nobody would do this in their own professional lives, yet seem to expect footballers to take paycuts. I think the context is slightly different. If a normal person takes a pay cut, it will have a massive impact on how they live their lives. If a footballer goes from earning 9 mill to 6 mill, I think they can probably take the hit and many would if it meant first team football/living in London over Manchester, etc... This is always where it gets a bit difficult. Yes, to us earning 3 million after tax to play football would be the most amazing thing in thw world and therefore we probably wouldn't care about the drop from 4.5 million after tax. But this when viewing it from a fan's perspective who has a normal job and will never earn vast sums of money. But that isn't the mindset of a professional footballer - he regards it as a job where he wants to make the most money he can. If someone was stupid enough to give Adebayor such a well remunerated contract, why should he take a pay cut? His standard of living has probably risen and he doesn't want to give that up for first team football or whatever it us that us football fans think should be at the forefront of a player's mind.

Same here - if they were being honest, nobody would do this in their own professional lives, yet seem to expect footballers to take paycuts.

http://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/uefa/ E: http://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/uefa/calendar2012.html Cheers - hoping we get a good European away tie for one of the early matches.

No doubt already covered, but is there a website that shows the dates of our Europa League Group matches (assuming we get there)?

Tried to make this comment on earlier page but it got a bit lost. I am fairly ambivalent on Carroll coming - happy to have him on loan or for a fee that is lower than 10 million. Any higher than 10 million and I would have to think quite carefully. 15 million+, I wouldn't bother. But, I have noticed people saying we could get much better strikers than Carroll for less. So, my question is... who could we realistically get for less than Carroll who is better? I am interested to know what suggestions are put forward.

Not that I am suggesting that we should spend £12 million on Carroll, but out of interest, which strikers do people realistically think we could get for £12 million that would be better than Carroll? Especially given that Carroll has a hint of 'proven record' in this country. Again, not suggesting there aren't any around, but would be interested to hear names.

good post from Shak.

To say he hasn't shown anything is a bit unfair. He was good at the Euros. Selective memories, he had a decent end to the season for Liverpool and I actually thought he was Liverpool's best player against us until he dived or fell over going around Krul. 1st 20 minutes against us he looked very good and almost back to his best. When he is on his game, I wouldn't back many defenders in the world to cope with him in the air, he is that dominant. On loan - yes, get him in. Buying him for £15 million though - wouldn't go there.

Given our success with ripping Liverpool off, I suggest we offer them a straight swap.

Totally agree. We needed a bigger squad throughout last season and we will need an even bigger squad with Europe. This notion that we somehow need to fit Ba, Cisse and Carroll into the same team for every game is just a bit bizarre.

Would be weird not to have a single English player in our starting XI. Looks a great team though..