Mark Viduka

[Fatwax]

We need a lot of new players, but it's madness to think any club can sign 8-10 players in one summer, just won't happen.

 

Allardyce signed 9.

 

But he also released 5 I believe.

[Yorkie]

We need a lot of new players, but it's madness to think any club can sign 8-10 players in one summer, just won't happen.

 

Allardyce signed 9.

 

But he also released 5 I believe.

 

True, but if we were to go out and sign nine players again this summer, i doubt it'd be in the wake of letting just one or two go...

 

 

 

Ftr:

 

Players Out

Titus Bramble

Craig Moore

Oguchi Onyewu

Olivier Bernard

Pavel Srnicek

Antoine Sibierski

Scott Parker

Alan O’Brien

Kieron Dyer

Paul Huntington

Albert Luque

Nolberto Solano

 

 

Players In

Mark Viduka

Joey Barton

David Rozehnal

Nijtap Geremi

Alan Smith

Claudio Caçapa

Jose Enrique

Abdoulaye Faye

Habib Beye

 

 

Oh the optimism.   Can remember Souness bringing seven in n'all, and we were all claiming that to be the greasest summa eva. Eesh. Another Allardyce summer is what we need tbh, just... you know... with better players.

[Leazes1986]

It will be absolute madness if we do not sign a centre back, a big strong central midfielder, an attacking central midfielder, a right winger and a striker just ot go into the line up. Its a big huge job which needs done. For some reason I think if Shearer stays then we will see a lot of early summer signings. I really can't see him messing around like previous managers.

[Yorkie]

GK, CB, CM, RM, CF are the priorities like.

 

If we stay up then we're going to have to fucking invest some in the summer. Whilst i've every faith in Shearer to turn into a decent manager, he's untried in the transfer market and i can't see him unearthing some gems on a shoe-string budget; especially if we're scrapping the makings of a good recruitment/scouting system (can of worms).

[Leazes1986]

The question if we stay up is will Mike Ashley stick to his guns after we've had such a massive scare and buy cheaper younger players, or will he see that we need good investment as relegation would cost us a lot more than spending big to improve the squad to make it strong.

[mrmojorisin75]

The question if we stay up is will Mike Ashley stick to his guns after we've had such a massive scare and buy cheaper younger players, or will he see that we need good investment as relegation would cost us a lot more than spending big to improve the squad to make it strong.

 

if we stay mike ashley has one choice, and it's not even a choice - do whatever the fuck shearer tells him to

 

anything else he might as well give the club away for a number of reasons

[Guest toonlass]

Would rather we kept Viduka on the books for a year than Ameobi for 3 tbh. He can always turn on a performance like the one on monday when its needed.

[danswan]

We need a lot of new players, but it's madness to think any club can sign 8-10 players in one summer, just won't happen.

 

Allardyce signed 9.

 

But he also released 5 I believe.

 

 

 

Players In

Mark Viduka

Joey Barton

David Rozehnal

Nijtap Geremi

Alan Smith

Claudio Caçapa

Jose Enrique

Abdoulaye Faye

Habib Beye

 

 

Looking at that list, there's a couple of dodgy ones (Rozehnal, Caçapa, Smith)  but not one of them that you couldn't see easily holding down a place in a mid-table prem side. It's pathetic how little they have contributed, Viduka included.

 

Would definitely keep him on a Pay-per-game basis though. Cheap as chips.

 

[Yorkie]

I think Viduka, Barton, Enrique, Faye and Beye are all good players.

 

But there's only one transfer you can regard as a success from that lot, and that's Prince Habib.

[Cajun]

I think Viduka, Barton, Enrique, Faye and Beye are all good players.

 

But there's only one transfer you can regard as a success from that lot, and that's Prince Habib.

 

The signing of Faye was a success, the failure was selling him.

[Yorkie]

Cracking defender, but simply an Allardyce bumboy.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

I thought Rozenhal was alright TBH... might have come good given the chance.

[Yorkie]

Probably would have been alright if he wasn't weak as piss.

[afar]

Martins, Viduka, Xisco, Lovenkrands, Carroll, Ranger will do it for me next season. I'd rather want us to spend money on the flank positions, wouldn't mind a new  goalkeeper either and of course 1-2 new MCs would be canny...

 

Assuming we'll want two players in each position with Cacapa, Barton, Geremi and Ameobi getting sold in the summer:

 

                                Harper/Krul

 

Beye/Raylor       Bassong/Colo - Saylor/Edgar - Enrique/____

 

Gutierrez/___  - Nolan/Guthrie - Butt/Smith      -  Duff/____

 

                       Viduka/Xisco - Martins/Love

 

We'll really need to do some shopping to fill in the holes, simply not acceptable that our only left winger also happens to be our backup left-back.

 

Going through your team and asssuming we are in the PL next season.

 

I don't think a GK should be a priority at all, more than happy with what we have.

 

In terms of the defence I agree with you on the need for another left back, we may also need to look at replacing Colocinni, with someone that actually knows how to play CB. The rest are fine.

 

The midfield is where I see most of our activity needing to be focused. We need a younger defensively minded midfielder to take over from Butt when he retires, probably at the end of the 2010/11 season, I think the management will try to get one more season out of him. Smith could be that option, but I'm not convinced, Guthrie I don't think is a DM at all.

 

We also desperately need that creative midfielder we've failed to pick up in the last few windows.  And we need a back up for him too. Barton of course will leave, Nolan and Smith should be moved on for me.

 

The wide men need revisiting, I would give Jonas one more season to see if he can add an end product to his willingness to work. Duff's contract probably prevents us from moving him on, and his versitilaty would come in handy. So we need a left and right winger, of sufficient quality to be pushing for a first team place right away.

 

Up front, Owen will most likely be gone, Viduka probably too, I think we need to move Martins on too if we can get our money back I would take it in a shot. If we could get rid of Shola to some championship team, that would be a bonus. Xisco too needs to be moved on, there's got to be a reason why each of the managers this season has failed to even offer the guy a place on the bench.  If that all happened of course we are kinda screwed for strikers. Lovenkrands should be offered an extension, Carrol maybe moves into a more prominant role. But we'll need 2 more strikers, I would like a small fast one with excellent finishing skills and a strong one able to hold up the play and bring other players into play. Both those players would cost a lot of money, but maybe we can find a bargain in some obscure league somewhere.

 

At the end of the day to make the necessary changes to the squad we need serious funds. A budget of 25 - 50 million needs to be released. I can't see Ashley doing that, so unless we get real lucky finding more bassong type players, we'll struggle to improve on this season.

[Yorkie]

Harper's gash man; if he's first choice next season we'll drop a lot of points where not necassary. Especially if we don't sort out the defense once and for all (which isn't gonna happen, even if we've got £100m to spend).

 

We could have lost the game last night thanks to Harper almost singlehandedly. I know these balls swerve about a bit, but i really don't know how a goalkeeper of 33 can't parry the ball. His collection of the ball was pretty poor aswell.

 

It is a shame cos i like the guy a lot and i've been happy to have him on our books for the past ten years or so, but he's been shown up since the departure of Given.

[mrmojorisin75]

Harper's gash man; if he's first choice next season we'll drop a lot of points where not necassary. Especially if we don't sort out the defense once and for all (which isn't gonna happen, even if we've got £100m to spend).

 

We could have lost the game last night thanks to Harper almost singlehandedly. I know these balls swerve about a bit, but i really don't know how a goalkeeper of 33 can't parry the ball. His collection of the ball was pretty poor aswell.

 

It is a shame cos i like the guy a lot and i've been happy to have him on our books for the past ten years or so, but he's been shown up since the departure of Given.

 

there's never been a team in the history of football was relegated because of the keeper

 

harper might not be given but lets not get carried away here, behind a coherent defence harper will be fine for the time being

 

we have much, much bigger priorities man

[Yorkie]

When did i say he'd relegate us? I said we'll drop a lot of unnecassary points with him in goal. I know that's true for any goalkeeper - well, for any player i suppose. But he's simply a pretty poor keeper.

 

I guess you can forgive us for taking the goalkeeper situation for granted over the last 12 years. But if we don't sign a new number 1 in the summer, i can envisage threads popping up on here a few months into the season, regretting how we didn't do something about it/crying out for Krul.

 

It's a ballache given the other investment required, and i wouldn't say it's the number 1 priority (lolmao), but a priority it is...

[Leazes1986]

Harper's gash man; if he's first choice next season we'll drop a lot of points where not necassary. Especially if we don't sort out the defense once and for all (which isn't gonna happen, even if we've got £100m to spend).

 

We could have lost the game last night thanks to Harper almost singlehandedly. I know these balls swerve about a bit, but i really don't know how a goalkeeper of 33 can't parry the ball. His collection of the ball was pretty poor aswell.

 

It is a shame cos i like the guy a lot and i've been happy to have him on our books for the past ten years or so, but he's been shown up since the departure of Given.

 

there's never been a team in the history of football was relegated because of the keeper

 

harper might not be given but lets not get carried away here, behind a coherent defence harper will be fine for the time being

 

we have much, much bigger priorities man

 

Agreed. Harper would be more than fine in a good solid team. Thats what we have to aim for next season if we stay up.

[Yorkie]

Mind you... i'm speaking from the 'loadsa money' school of thought. If we're on a shoestring budget i'd say not to bother with the keeper as there are more pressing matters.

[mrmojorisin75]

When did i say he'd relegate us? I said we'll drop a lot of unnecassary points with him in goal. I know that's true for any goalkeeper - well, for any player i suppose. But he's simply a pretty poor keeper.

 

I guess you can forgive us for taking the goalkeeper situation for granted over the last 12 years. But if we don't sign a new number 1 in the summer, i can envisage threads popping up on here a few months into the season, regretting how we didn't do something about it/crying out for Krul.

 

It's a ballache given the other investment required, and i wouldn't say it's the number 1 priority (lolmao), but a priority it is...

 

you never said that but the point is intimated - don't target the outfield players and we're down regardless of whether we have harper and given in goals at the same time

 

we cannot, CANNOT go another season ignoring the glaring deficiencies in our outfield staff

 

harper will be fine for another season, if he's that bad krul will cover simple as

[mrmojorisin75]

Mind you... i'm speaking from the 'loadsa money' school of thought. If we're on a shoestring budget i'd say not to bother with the keeper as there are more pressing matters.

 

oh, this really

[Leazes1986]

If we had "loads of money" then we would be talking about replacing every player in the team except Beye and Bassong if we were going to be perfect. Never gonna happen. Even with a good budget we aren't going to be a great team. Its going to take time.

[Cajun]

We will be lucky to sign 3 players who will improve the first 11.

[afar]

When did i say he'd relegate us? I said we'll drop a lot of unnecassary points with him in goal. I know that's true for any goalkeeper - well, for any player i suppose. But he's simply a pretty poor keeper.

 

I guess you can forgive us for taking the goalkeeper situation for granted over the last 12 years. But if we don't sign a new number 1 in the summer, i can envisage threads popping up on here a few months into the season, regretting how we didn't do something about it/crying out for Krul.

 

It's a ballache given the other investment required, and i wouldn't say it's the number 1 priority (lolmao), but a priority it is...

 

you never said that but the point is intimated - don't target the outfield players and we're down regardless of whether we have harper and given in goals at the same time

 

we cannot, CANNOT go another season ignoring the glaring deficiencies in our outfield staff

 

harper will be fine for another season, if he's that bad krul will cover simple as

 

Totally agree with MrM and totally disagree with Yorkie. Harper a perfectly competent PL goalkeeper and if we spuk 5million or so of our most probably very limited budget on a replacement, we really need to question those in charge of evaluating our squad.

[Yorkie]

Like i say, i'll concede that - if we don't have £20m to blow in the summer then we should probably not go looking for a goalkeeper. If we've got a bit to spend though, and we pin our hopes on Steve Harper, i personally reckon we'll end up regretting it.