The9

I posted in late Feb/early March that Both Norwich and Swansea had replaced 7 or 8 of their Championship starters from Feb 2011 by Feb 2012 - but that's 2 transfer windows rather than just the summer. Of your list I think only Puncheon and De Ridder are arguable, the former we know is of adequate standard for the first month of any contract , the latter I think could still have a role as an impact sub.

Based on the Fiorentina precedent, about 2 of them might end up staying.

I've already got my tickets for next season, they're £32.50-ish per match. For competitive Premier League matches, as opposed to three halves of kickabouts 2 weeks into preseason training with us not having signed about half the team. And yeah, I have so far only paid the Cortese Tax once, for my ST this season when it was unavoidable. I ALWAYS go to the ground (or get a mate to go), and won't park in the car park now either. They also won't post the tickets now anyway due to the proximity, so a bit moot now.

I think it's easier to integrate strikers, there's less impact from their defensive mistakes and even with no training at all they can still create chances and score goals through improvisation - Tadanari Lee showed that he hadn't been integrated into our possession and low risk attacking with all his direct runs in behind which never got him the ball, but he still scored goals. Get a keeper that constantly kicks it long to anyone other than Lambert and our entire possession system is undermined. I agree that it doesn't take long to coach them to do otherwise, but it probably takes a while to work them into the systems of who goes where and when, what's an acceptable risk, where to position yourself to get a ball back from the full backs, etc. It took Kelv about 6 months in 2010/11 to get comfortable passing short to the full backs and knowing where the unmarked man was from the full back/centre back movements. It will take longer to get a striker to play in a system than a keeper, but playing a keeper without knowledge of the defensive systems and communication or training with his defence is a much bigger risk than playing a striker who hasn't met his teammates.

Agreed.

Bloody typical, I was reading (i.e. looking for familiar names in) Marca on Wednesday... Thursday, news of a player Saints have been linked with.

That's not right. They're also based on existing experience and expected future values - one of the SSN talking heads (not an ex-pro) yesterday said ex-Blackburn Junior Hoilett would be expected to reach £4m in tribunal, so there's clearly a factor for appearances and experience as well as position and the level they're at. Gobern had barely played 5 matches for us in League One, Best was a striker (which also has a premium as historically they're worth more) and had one Prem match and a few Championship games, but Clyne has significant first team experience at Palace in the Championship over a couple of seasons. Based on that, £1.5m confirmed rather than subject to arbitration is probably as good as Palace can expect to negotiate.

Guessing a LOT more people got on board for the £47 deal then. The walk-up will be significantly impacted by the weather, which will be crappy again.

Some of the speculation is paper talk, we're evolving, but have always needed at least 5 new players. It seems the idea now is to use the step up to get young proven Championship talent in this summer, before the reality of the Prem hits and we're potentially put in a position of having to sign more in less favourable circumstances if struggling at Xmas. I said in January 2012 we'd need a new GK, maybe RB, a CB (or two), RM, CM (or two) and ST even after we'd signed Sharp and Lee and before we shed Bialkowski or Martin, and it seems we can add a LB to that too. I was assuming we'd not sign more than 5 at a time, but assuming we're signing a GK and CB to replace the leavers, there's also Jaidi and Connolly/Barnard to replace (Rodriguez has started that) along with the evident shortage at right mid. That's a lot of new players, no two ways about it.

It's novel, I'm not sure it's "good". Quite enjoyed last year's, but then that had a double kit launch too.

You mean £47 (plus booking fee) of someone's money when bought with the Udinese and Ajax games (which plenty of people will miss one of due to the holiday period); or £25 (plus booking fee) of someone's money for Saturday ? The 3 match deal is almost decent value at about £16/£17 a ticket, but even knowing I'm probably going to the other 2 matches (which can be bought in two separate months at £20 (plus booking fee)) I can't even justify spending the extra £7 up front for a glorified kickabout, would much rather save the money for a trip to the Etihad or Emirates.

And by "plenty" they probably mean "about 30000".

Carpet off the pitch, grass on it. I'm hoping we don't follow Chelsea's lead and put the carpet too close to the goal line, they have players falling over all the time and the ridge in the goal is almost certainly a factor in goal line clearances.

Spot on, and as such we shouldn't be throwing stones from our glass house.

It was (and is) 106, like anyone cares, but your point is still valid.

The misspelling of "At" and unnecessary exclamation mark at the start make this a no-brainer for me. SFC all the way, actually looks reasonably decent, 28_F. Thank you for the thread by the way, truly awesome.

He's a nice bloke, I used to work with him and we were pretty matey around 1998-2001ish - but he was a Rangers fan then. He's not having a good close season.

That's at least a year out of date, we haven't done that for ages.

Coo-ee, bloke who just got his pathetic argument ripped to pieces. *I* am laughing at *you".

Duran Brothers ??? We already have "Jose Fonte baby" by the Human League of course.

That's a lot of asterisks.

On the nutjob thread there's a quote from a Skate about "wouldn't change it for anything" from a few weeks back.

And even if he doesn't he can play in a friendly without a contract as a "triallist".

Yeah, they're arriving at the same time as the Skates who are going to wreck Southampton on the last derby day.

No, hopefully they might get that -10 as well.