James

Our inability to score other than from the penalty spot is very worrying indeed. Our attacking players are absolute sh*t on the whole (I basically mean everyone bar Gabbi). All well and good buying defensive midfielders and centre backs but we look so poor going forward still. Lot of work for MP to do.

Zero movement from Forster. What a surprise.

Gallagher offers us an option that none of our other forward players do - height - he is a genuine target man. We've got plenty of Long style pacy players that can't finish (Redmond etc). If I had to retain one of Long or Gallagher I'd be retaining Gallagher but I'm not in charge. I find it strange that we offered him a new deal with all the chat being that he was going to be staying to fight for his place and in less than two months he is being loaned again. Especially to a manager like Harry who has a horrible record for developing young players.

Long can't put the ball in the net regularly and, but for a purple patch under Koeman, has consistently failed to score regularly during his career. An injury to Gabbi and the inevitable injury to Austin and we will be in trouble. If Gallagher is loaned we need another forward.

They won't have been and I doubt he actually knows anything about the deal short of reading what's in the press. I could have written that blog post by summarising what the Times reported and then adding on "oh and they might need to carry on selling players to make an investment return." It's hardly an insightful observation is it?!

These warnings from the Chinese government on outbound investments aren't anything new. It's been going on for months. Doesn't really add anything specific as to the terms of our new partnership does it?

To be fair this article contains no facts at all to back up what it is saying. It might as well be a cut and paste from the Times article earlier in the week. It's a blog written by a Charlton fan - how would he have any ITK insight?

I'd rather it be Bertrand than Tadic if neither Austin or JWP are on. For me it's Austin first then JWP and then Bertrand.

He looked pretty pumped up today and a great reaction with the crowd when he scored. Didn't look a player that wanted to go. I also very much doubt he'd be playing if he was imminently about to be used as part of a transfer deal.

A lot of Hammers very upset about a Tadic tackle on Hernandez (he got booked I think). Anyone remember whether it was lucky not to be a red? I don't remember thinking we'd got away with one at the time. Some Hammers even claiming that the Arnatovic and Noble tackles were as a result of us winding them up with our prior tackles

That and the massive gash from that shocking Noble tackle.

Blimey, talk about harsh. Thought he looked very promising, good on the ball and the kind of physical player we need. A bit rusty for sure but "poor"? I don't think so.

At least this will silence the happy clappers who think Yosh and Stephens are good enough. This game shows they aren't.

Under normal principles of company law yes but, with these kind of "joint venture" arrangements, its usual to have a list of "reserved matters" which require unanimous consent from both investors. Given the 80:20 weighting I suspect the list of matters on which KL would have an effective veto right are quite slim. It depends whether the deal was struck on the basis of her retaining a purely economic interest with no shareholder voting rights or whether she still gets a say when it comes to fundamental changes being proposed. I hope the latter is the case.

Amazing, out MLG'ing MLG.

We had a keeper on trial a few weeks back. Why would we do that if we weren't looking for another keeper? We will get one I think if Gazzaniga leaves.

I'd go with this and move Davis forward. Really impressed by Boufal when he came on. Here's hoping it's his year.

It really wasn't.

I didn't really understand the straight swap of Gabbi and Austin. Would have thought we'd have done well to take off JWP and have Gabbi as one of the three behind Austin.

I do agree about the high crosses, we don't have anyone to head them in. A couple fell to JWP in the first half and it was just embarrassing.

This would be good if true. Surely means Long out assuming it's a permanent deal?

I think all of the attacking players have a monkey on their back after last year. Gabbi has been snatching a bit at chances. He's got quality and will come good I'm sure.

Don't agree with that. We got in behind them plenty of times in the first half.

But if we don't have a link between the midfield and the striker then why is buying a new striker going to change that? How about we buy the link player and keep the two good strikers we already own?

Exactly. If even 2 of the clear cut chances we had today had fallen to Gabbi or Austin we'd have won, they didn't and our misfiring midfield and defenders weren't up to it. Gabbi and Austin had half chances at best.