Chez

Isn't that now standard practice for players about to depart? We could do a lot worse, if our own RBs are going to be fit to return.

£75m according to transfermarkt and £28m of which was in the bank when SR took over. Your point still stands though.

Tell me Grave Digger, El Toro Loco , Bigfoot and the entire Monster Jam are coming to St Marys...

cold weather training. Like it. Playing back in England with our `mild' winter will seem like a joy.

describe the goal to us.

is that a euphemism?

Gotcha. Has the rule changed. I thought it used to be that players in their final year of contract could start talking to oversees clubs in January and then in this country once contracts had ended? Or have I just got that wrong? I'd of thought he'd keep his options open in case Blackburn did get promoted. Having said that, if a team like Saints came in for him in January (and agreed a fee with Blackburn) he's have to consider it. You wouldn't want to miss out on a Prem pay day. I liked him when he was at Forest. Good feet and great prospect. Lacked goals back then. Not any more.

17 year old Bellingham going for £30m shows exactly what we are up against. We want to buy top quality talent. We know we need to look at young and inexperienced players for the right quality of player to be in our financial ball park, but not a chance we were able to sign him ahead of Dortmund, even though he only had one season in the championship. The only way we could have signed him is while he was playing for the Birmingham youth team. Everyone knew he was quality, but we would have had to spend £15m to get him...much like we have done with Edozie. So obviously that's the way to go then? Snap up the wonder kids. The trouble of course is that not every wonder kid thrives like Bellingham did once he started playing first team football.

Blackburn might get promoted. They will be very very reluctant to sell Diaz until the summer.

I'm happy to admit if I'm wrong. I watched the videos back again several times I disagree with you. I think these are two perfect examples to dig him out. A proper centre half wins the header at Anfield. Lyanco just goes through the motions of marking someone, makes zero, and I mean zero effort to win the ball and in the end just limply turns his back on the ball. He should be dominating the box, winning that header. Redmond runs past him. For the second, JWP being there has no bearing on Lyanco's woeful marking of the goalscorer. He should be attacking the ball, winning the header, at the very least bumping the goalscorer, but he actually runs away. He kills us with that defending.

Amazing cup tie that. I went up to Burnden Park for the original fixture. We were two nil up and absolutely strolling it. They made an attacking sub at half time, can't remember who it was that came on, but they ran us ragged in the second half. The noise their crowd made was tremendous. The atmosphere in the replay was brilliant too. Take a look a at that away end. Bolton brought thousands down, which for a midweek game was bloody impressive. I don't think I've seen a busier Dell. That game, Swindon and Oldham all stick in m mind as the great midweek cup fixtures at the Dell atmosphere wise.

I'm lost. You said what we needed to bring in this summer was 24-32 year old players with lots of top flight experience and good quality, yet you then say ABK, Mara, Bazunu and Edozie are "good signings". So do you value those attributes or not? Sounds to me that all you really care about is their quality, just like me. Our problem is not that ABK has no one to learn from, his colleagues CC, Lyanco, Salisu, KWP and Perraud have over700 games under their belts, it's that we don't have 10 more players of his quality. Returning to your original post about us needing to sign players with those three attributes, a 25 year old premiership player with a hundred games and is as a quality player, is going to be tough to attract and afford. Remove two of those criteria and we have a chance of signing them. So, which two are you gonna lose? Age and experience has to go. And that is what the club have said. We can't sign absolute top quality players with the age and experience you mention, so they are going to sacrifice those two criteria and go for absolute quality young and untried blokes. That makes total sense (as long as they do sign absolute quality), but just for fans like you that are not sold on that philosophy, they actually signed some players with age and experienced too. Now, whether those player have the quality, I'm not sure.

I'd argue that being `good enough' is all that matters, not the age, previously experience and where that experience was. Our problem is not the age of our players, or their experience, its the quality. Haarland had not got Prem experience and doesn't fit that age profile, but he'd be first choice in every Prem side right now. ABK doesn't fit the Prem experience or age criteria, but he's perhaps the first name on the team sheet right now. In the end, all that matters is buying quality. Age and experience, meh. The Ajax side a few years ago made the UEFA final and every player was under 21. We actually signed a (balanced) mix of players this summer. AMN,ABK, Carleta-Car and Aribo - all seasoned pros. Edozie, Mara, Bazunu and Larios - all nippers.

I struggle to get past his absolutely pathetic defending for the fourth goal (at 1:56) conceded at Anfield last year. He just ducks, turns his back and does fuck all to win the header ...in addition to the even worse defending at (2:25) for Norwich's second goal. This was totally lost in the criticism of McCarthy, but he is again absolutely woeful. To be fair, he has done OK this season - not seen him defend like that, but then again we've not see him as much. I have always been concerned that he `papers over the cracks' of his own game by diving in rather than just matching up physically with an opponent Abut also ensuring he doesn't sell himself completely. He takes the easy route and we applaud him for winning the ball, but every now and then he sells himself completely and we are then fucked. Not seen much of that this season, but then again he hasn't played as much.

Can either return in January? Stephens out of contract in the summer. Bednarek has another year of course.

Chelsea loaned KDB to Werder Bremen for the season back in 2012. The following season he was back in the fold and he played a few games, but they decided to sell him in the January window to Wolfsberg. Chelsea allowing a player to leave a second time tells you what they think of the player, but who gives a fuck what they think? Wolfsberg absolutely loved him and made about €50m profit on him a couple of years later. he ain't coming here, so it matters not.

Obviously there is a massive difference in standard of opponent, and I got the feeling the four goals were taps ins. Still got to be there to score them, but not sure you come away thinking, wow this guy is special and right on his game, he needs to start for the first team.

They didn't get paid £500k a week though.

We're not constantly under the cosh. The attack minded young players like Edozie (Mara is the only other youngster) will benefit greatly from playing games no matter how much possession/territory we have. For example. if you only touch the ball a few times, you quickly learn that you have to make the most of those chances - and be right on your game. Carleta-Car - JWP - Adams is a pretty experienced spine. Only Lavia and Bazunu are first choice. It's not as though we are dropping 8 or 9 kids into the side.

Chelsea - Rome - Southampton could almost be the livery on a three wheeler yellow van.

Question. Did we spend the Gakpo money in the last window? The reports obviously were that we made a sizeable bid, but when that fell through did we use some/all of the cash to fund Edozie, Larios and Carleta-Car moves? They all came in on deadline day. The reports at the time suggested we only found out on the last day of the window that Gakpo was staying at PSV, but that may not have been the case. Gakpo said afterwards: “It ended about a week before the end of the transfer window and in that week I had to decide if I would go to Leeds or Southampton” I am not sure if that means the dealings and his decision was done and dusted over a week before the window closed or not.

Helps a little bit though, but you are right, we still need to find two other teams worse than us, assuming they themselves go down. It should be noted that although we won the game at their place, we were so bad and under the cosh that we needed to revert to five at the back and park the bus. We are not a great side, and although we looked a little better at times against Liverpool, there is a lot to improve to get us scoring goals and winning enough games to stay up.

Did Rickie really score 15 goals for us in the first Prem season? For some reason I thought, like the side as a whole, he took a season to find his feet. I know this forum is 90% us moaning, but it's great to be able to post positively and the guy was bloody brilliant wasn't he? Finding another Sir Rickie ain't gonna be easy. If we do look to bring in a relatively big target man (although Che might be asked to perform that role possibly), then someone with his fantastic touch, ability to bully and position his body to win headers/bring the ball down and of course fantastic finishing, is essential to make up for (perhaps) lack of pace.

When was the last time united bought a player from the championship?

Got to say I was surprised just how confident he is and comes across. The way he talks is like a guy that knows he belongs at this level and has no concerns about players giving him the necessary respect. Obviously he could be one of these deluded souls that believes his own hype, and if he gets laughed out of town within six months that will suggest he is, but I don't get those vibes. He is only human. Like all managers, he can only do so much - the players are the ones that have to perform - but I am hopeful he will be successful here.